Elegy for a Chat
by epcot97
Summary: Troubled by Ladybug's continued rejection, Chat Noir seeks out Marinette to sooth his tortured soul. The visit unwittingly allows a new super villain to set into motion a chain of events jeopardizing not only Chat's Miraculous powers but Adrian's very existence. With Ladybug at his side, the duo race to piece together the clues – but will it be in time?
1. Nightmares

_Historian's Note:_

_ The events depicted take place after (and in some cases reference) those outlined in the episodes Dark Cupid, Glaciator, Gorizilla, Frozer, Anansi, and Sandboy but before Hero's Day (Parts 1 and 2)._

* * *

_**Chat Noir**_

It had been a long day and appeared to have every intention of being an even longer evening.

Chat Noir softly landed on a familiar rooftop in a partial crouch, his green eyes scanning the horizon. He didn't immediately pick up anything but took an extra heartbeat just to be sure he'd not been followed. For the first time, he found himself fervently hoping Ladybug hadn't decided to follow him after their traditional fist pump – something that he would have giddily welcomed on any other evening.

Tonight, not so much.

The akumatized villain they had just defeated had presented him with a doppelgänger Ladybug straight out of his worst nightmare; his cheeks still flamed at the thought the _real _Ladybug now knew just how keenly he felt her gentle but constant rejections of him.

_This is insane,_ he thought as he stood up and walked over to the wrought iron railing that rimmed one of his favorite perches in the city. He retracted his baton and replaced it at the small of his back, looked out across the river and the distant form of Notre Dame. The floodlights were highlighting the cathedral's best angles, and if he squinted, he could almost convince himself that he could see the flicker of the candles inside the sanctuary. He didn't need to look at the baton's built in phone to know that it was well past midnight and that if he didn't return home soon, he was going to be in sad shape for school in the morning.

Chat placed his claws against the railing and leaned into the gentle breeze that ruffled his out of control mane, eyes thinning slightly as they stared into space. He wasn't sure what had brought him here instead of home; his Miraculous had discharged enough that he'd barely made it over a building and into a side alley before he was forced to transform back to Adrian. But after fishing a piece of Camembert out of his pocket for Plagg, he'd impulsively decided to transform again and spend a little more time out in the moonless night as Chat, alone with his feelings – and away from the dreams. For once, Plagg had dropped his usual churlishness at being pressed into service so soon after eating. Chat suspected he was still feeling guilty about lying to him.

_What I need tonight is a friend I can talk to, _he mused_. Too bad I can't sidle up to anyone from school._ A wry smile formed beneath the mask as he imagined how that might actually play out.

"Hi," he said mockingly, holding up one gloved hand in greeting to no one in particular. "I'm Chat Noir and I'm madly in love with Ladybug." He turned on his heel, tail swishing, and started pacing the space. "And tonight, she – and the world – discovered in the most embarrassingly way possible just seriously I've fallen for her and what it would mean to me if she ever walked away." Chat paused dramatically, cocking his head enquiringly. "Any advice?"

The empty night had no answers, and he chuckled silently once more. "About what I expected," he sighed as he returned to the railing, pressing a hand to his head. "I'm pathetic," he sighed again. All of the self-assurance he normally felt while wearing the mask of Chat Noir had fled.

A few more minutes of contemplation along the railing led him back to where he had begun. _Alone out here or alone at home?_ he asked himself. In the end, he guessed it hadn't really mattered one way or the other after all. Both options were equally distasteful, but one came with decent Wi-Fi that he could use to drown his sorrow.

As he turned to go, a feline ear rotated and caught a whisper on the wind; Chat turned toward the source. To his surprised delight, lights were on over the balcony of perhaps the one person he _could_ conceivably drop in on. Chat thought about for a fraction of a second, made a decision, and leapt away from his rooftop and into the night.

* * *

_**Marinette**_

Despite having quietly returned to her room without drawing notice, Marinette had not been able to fall asleep. Her mind kept replaying the events of the evening and at length she'd pushed her way through the skylight and onto the rooftop balcony of her family's bakery. The night remained pleasantly cool, with a gathering breeze from the river gently swaying the party lights she had strung over the comfortable space.

She tried hard to block out the image of her partner's mortification at the reveal of his ultimate fear that Ladybug wanted nothing to do with. Chat's normally over-the-top persona had in that one moment shriveled into something quite vulnerable, his raw emotion laid bare to her in the worst possible way. It had only been for the briefest of moments, and he'd hastily recomposed himself into his normal roguish attitude while they completed their work against Sandboy.

But she had seen it. And now she had no idea what to do about it.

Guiltily she realized that _her_ nightmare – a zombie-like Adrian chasing her while simultaneously telling Marinette he was deeply in love with another classmate – had not been as public as Chat's humiliation. And even if Chat had seen it, she'd still been Marinette, and as Chat likely had no clue who Adrian was to her, the impact would have been far less significant.

A faint metallic thump from above caught her attention, followed by a familiar but more tentative than normal: "Hello."

Marinette turned toward the sound, spying Chat Noir easily balancing atop one of the triangular chimney flues above the bakery. How he was able to do that had long been a mystery to her. "Chat Noir! Is everything ok?" She glanced around the skyline of Paris, wondering if she had somehow missed a pending emergency, biting the bottom of her lip as she did so. _Of all nights…_

"Yes," he said quietly, but with an edge that spoke volumes. Searching his masked face, she could tell that he was still troubled – despite his protestations to the contrary earlier. Carefully she adopted her normal air of compassion, fighting back any visible concern that would betray a sense that she knew what had happened to him. As far as Chat knew, Marinette had been nowhere near that street corner.

"I saw your light on and wanted to make sure nothing was amiss here," he continued as he gently leapt down to his now customary place on her railing. Chat had been an irregular visitor to Marinette starting with the evening he'd planned a special rooftop dinner for Ladybug. To her lasting embarrassment, she'd stood him up, as her alter ego had been single-mindedly pursuing some time with Adrian instead. She never knew when to expect Chat, but had made it clear to him early on that he was welcome at any time.

"It was a long day," she said truthfully, leaning against the railing by Chat. "I'm having some trouble falling asleep and thought some fresh night air might help." She looked over toward him. His wide green cat eyes were downcast, following unseen patterns in the tile of the roof. Her heart broke just a little bit more. Despite all of the bravado, she instinctively knew that Chat tended to feel very alone in the world. "You?"

The feline ears twitched. "The same," he said simply.

Marinette smiled. "Now that is hard to believe," she laughed. "I thought cats slept, like, twenty hours a day? I'm surprised you have any time to squeeze in those super heroics!" She playfully punched at his eye-high bicep, eyes widening when he unexpectedly recoiled from her and even more uncharacteristically, watched him loose his balance entirely and tumble to the roof proper.

"Sorry," he apologized hastily from a very cat-like four-point crouch. He smoothly stood in a swift motion and made a show of nonchalantly dusting himself off. "I'm really not feeling myself tonight; I'm sorry to have bothered you." He hopped back to the top of the railing and started to coil into a leap away from her.

"Kitt- I mean, Chat! Stop!" she said, more forcefully than she intended, and nearly using her Ladybug endearment for him.

The blonde head snapped around at the command, startled green eyes framed by the mask. Slowly, they became wide green eyes, appraising her as if he'd suddenly realized something.

"I could use the company for a bit," she said, thinking fast. "Those nightmares we experienced today cut a little bit too close to home." She held out a hand to him, encouraging him to stay.

Chat looked at her for a long moment, deciding. He leapt down from the railing, and stood next to her, the movement of his costume's fabric barely a whisper. Concern laced his expression as he tentatively approached her, careful to stay outside an outright intrusion of her personal space.

"I'm sorry, I had no idea." He placed a gloved hand on her shoulder, carefully keeping his claws away from the fabric of her top. "Tell me about it," he offered. "A friend once said that talking about these things helps." He paused, tilting a feline ear toward her. "I'm all ears," he said with gentle humor, attempting in his own way to take the edge off the moment.

Zombie Adrian leapt into her mind's eye. Marinette blushed and hoped that the limited light would not make it obvious, before remembering Chat Noir had perfect night vision. If he'd seen anything, he was playing the perfect gentleman. "It was intensely personal," she admitted. "I'm not sure it would make sense explaining it."

Chat waited, his eyes focused on her, concern still showing yet tinged with a certain awareness. He nodded slowly. "I can relate to that," he said. "My nightmare was deeply personal; unfortunately, mine is probably plastered all over the Ladyblog by now."

His gaze shifted to the skyline just over her shoulder, a thought visibly crossing his face. "On my way to meet Ladybug," he started, "I made an unexpected side trip tonight. This poor kid had become... trapped in his bedroom; he was deathly afraid of being alone and defenseless, and it was playing out for him in real-time."

Marinette quietly waited, wondering. Chat hadn't mentioned that to Ladybug – normally he gushed about his heroic exploits in his nightly attempts to curry favor, bravado she had always assumed was just part of the Noir persona. But the pained look on Chat's face made her wonder if he was talking about what had happened to his alter ego.

Chat's tail twitched as he looked back toward Marinette. "The only advice I can give is something Ladybug once said: we are all stronger than we realize, especially when we are surrounded by good hearted people." He sighed audibly. "Sound advice that I have kept close to my heart."

Her heart thumped. _I did say that, didn't I? And he _heard_ it, too..._

He smiled a bit ruefully. "It was unfair of me to drop in," he continued. "I'd wanted a friendly ear to sooth my feline soul, and it never once dawned on me you'd have been singed as well." He searched her eyes. "For that, I am truly sorry, mi—uh, Marinette."

"Oh Chat!" she chirped, genuinely upset at his distress. Were his eyes glistening?

He smiled a bit more normally as he dropped his arm back to his side. "Well," he said. "It's not a secret how I feel about Ladybug; the whole world knows about it at this point." He turned away from her and wandered toward the opposite edge of the space, tail idly twisting as he spoke.

Between the ears and the tail, Marinette had never quite figured out how he managed such lifelike feline movements and had simply chalked them up to the magic behind the Miraculous. Tonight, the tail telegraphed his despair in a way that tore at her heart. Had her single-mindedness with Adrian blinded her? Before tonight, she'd never even thought about how she might be hurting Chat with her standoffishness. But now, seeing him like this…

"I - I don't know what to say-" she started.

As Chat turned to hear what she was saying, his eyes widened in surprise as a gloved hand flew to the side of his exposed neck. "Oof!" was all he managed to get out before his eyes rolled upward and he crumpled to the rooftop in an ungainly heap of black material.

"Chat!"

Marinette crossed the distance to her partner in less time than she thought possible and dropped to her knees; as she did so, a high-pitched whistle sailed just above one of her pigtails. _Someone is watching this balcony,_ she realized. _I can't change to Ladybug to get Chat out of here!_

She pressed herself below the level of the railing and checked for a pulse; it was thumping as if he were running a marathon. Carefully she twisted his head slightly and could see a tiny dart-like object protruding from a small, angry red welt just above the right side of his collar. Thinking quickly, she tore a section off the hem of her top and wrapped it around the base of the dart, yanking it swiftly from Chat's skin. A small bubble of blood trickled out, but Chat's quick-healing ability had the wound scabbed almost immediately.

Marinette glanced up and out in the direction the projectile had to have come from and was rewarded with another high-pitched whistle passing barely a meter from her face.

_Plan B it is._

Gripping the wrapped dart in one hand, Marinette half dragged the inert form of Chat Noir toward the skylight at the rear of the balcony, wishing for the greater strength she had when transformed but making do as best as she could.

"No more kitty treats for you!" she groaned.

Chat _was_ heavy, but she could feel he was all muscle beneath the costume – she'd never really taken note of that before. Now that she was thinking about it, the costume somehow accentuated his nearly classical proportions – how had she missed that? Despite the dire situation, she felt herself blushing deeply, not entirely certain why.

_Nothing for it now_, she thought wearily as she plodded her way to safety.

Thankfully she had left the door open, so without ceremony, she upended Chat through the aperture and onto her waiting bed below. She quickly followed and pulled the skylight closed behind her.

She shook Chat's inert form, attempting to rouse him. "Tikki!" she hissed. "Where are you?"

Tikki appeared from the darkness. "Marinette! What's wrong with Chat Noir?"

"I don't know," she said as she leaned toward the unresponsive figure. He wasn't breathing entirely normally – it was almost a panting, painful to hear. She pressed a finger to his throat and rechecked the pulse, finding it was still much faster than she felt was normal, even for him. She started to pry open one of his eyes but paused when she heard the telltale chirp from Chat's Miraculous. "We appear to have another problem entirely," she muttered, as she sat back in shock.

Tikki's eyes widened. "Did he use his superpower?"

"No," Marinette said. "And that is what worries me."


	2. Close Quarters

_**Chat Noir**_

The bedside alarm was chirping, although for the life of him, Adrian couldn't remember having used a tone quite so similar to the warning his Miraculous gave when Chat Noir's transformation was about to run out. Lethargically, he felt himself groping for his phone in a futile attempt to turn the thing off. Oddly, the sound moved as his hand did – the doppler effect was pretty impressive. Painfully he cracked open an eye to assist in the search and realized his night vision – Chat Noir's night vision, actually – was fully operational and there would be no alarm clock to silence.

He sat up and immediately smashed his head on the ceiling. Heart racing with panic, he found himself in an unfamiliar bedroom – although the scent of its owner was definitely in his feline database.

_Holy – I'm still at Marinette's. In her bed…!_

He raised his gloved hand and sure enough his Miraculous was down to the two-minute warning.

_How is that even possible? I never called up my Cataclysm!_

His heart skipped a beat.

_Did it happen while I was out? OhMyGodOhMyGod...!_

Frantically he searched the space but nothing appeared to have been disintegrated (that was positive), but Marinette also seemed to have vanished (that might be problematic). He should find out if she was safe, but the rush of blood was loud in his ears, and his need to get away from her before he transformed was nearly primal – not to mention finding Adrien in her bed would be the ultimate disaster.

_I _did_ pass out, didn't I? Did I say anything? Can I call Cataclysm unconsciously? Maybe that's why the ring is going nuts._

A gloved hand instinctively went to the side of his neck and felt the welt of damage where something had nicked him. Memory flooded back; he'd been turning to talk to Marinette and had heard the missile a fraction of a second before it hit him. That in itself was unusual, given his enhanced feline reflexes.

He couldn't have been out that long, but clearly, he'd been moved; hadn't he been on the roof? He slid forward, each movement a searing pain that brought waves of stars and a bit of darkness to the edge of his vision. Chat felt as though the entire panoply of villains they had fought over the past year had somehow pummeled him while he'd been out.

The ring chirped again – he had less than a minute now, the decision made for him. Chat pressed open the skylight and pulled himself through it, an agonizing experience that left him panting on the cool roof tiles. He found himself on his back, staring at the stars and desperately wanting the pain to go away. Laboriously, he got to his knees and used the wrought iron railing to help stand up. The world swam in his vision for a moment, and he took a deep breath to try and steady himself. Reaching for his baton, he triggered travel mode and started to vault up and over the railing.

In the next instant, he was instead tumbling over and down, his left foot uncharacteristically catching the top of the railing; he flung his arms out in an attempt to counter the tumble, losing the baton in the process. He watched helplessly as it sailed away from him while he simultaneously dove toward the sidewalk himself. Everything seemed to be going in slow motion, giving him enough time to realize he'd probably should have found a closet or something instead of becoming a cat pancake.

_Talk about a cat-tastrophe._

Well, at least he'd never have to face Ladybug again. That was something.

The ground rose up to meet him and he closed his eyes one final time.

* * *

_**Marinette**_

"Tikki, what do we do?"

The kwami fluttered next to Marinette, eyes full of concern. "Chat Noir may not have intentionally used his super power, but whatever he has been exposed to has drained him as if he had." She twittered nervously. "I don't have enough knowledge myself, but Master Fu will know what to do."

Marinette looked horrified. "But I can't leave Chat alone here!"

"Nor should you," Tikki said. "Yet you absolutely can't find out his secret identity." She motioned to the closet door in the corner. "Duck into your closet and let him transform-" Tikki never finished the sentence.

Chat's Miraculous chirped another warning – two minutes left, if she was correct, and she watched as he bolted upright in her bed, nailing his head on the ceiling in the process. She started forward to say something, anticipating that he was realizing that he was about to transform and frantically looking for a way out. Faster than she thought possible, there was a flutter of activity from her bed, followed by the grating sound of the skylight opening. To her horror she watched the tail of Chat Noir disappear to her roof, followed by a discomforting thud that would wake the dead.

"He's trying to leave before he transforms!" she whispered to Tikki. "We've got to stop him! Tikki – spots on!"

Enveloped in a red flash, Marinette transformed into Ladybug and then quickly made her way to the skylight herself, fully aware that it would be difficult to explain Ladybug's sudden appearance. Leaping onto the roof she expected to find Chat laid out on the tile; instead, she gaped open-mouthed as his baton went one way, he the other, but both downward and out of control.

Instinctively she launched herself out over the street, narrowly capturing the insensate form of Chat Noir as she looped her yo-yo over the chimney of the building directly across the street from the bakery. The yo-yo retracted and pulled her to the rooftop, where she landed none-to-steadily with her baggage. She gently dropped the black-cladded hero to the tile and knelt just to his side. He was still breathing but was clearly out again.

_You foolish, foolish kitty!_ She cried to herself, hugging him to her body. "Don't ever do that to me again," she said aloud. Then, more to herself as a revelation: "I can't lose you."

Chat's ring chirped a final warning and his body began to take on the transformation glow. Shocked, she pressed her eyes firmly shut and turned away from the blinding flash.


	3. Non Sequitur

_**Chat Noir**_

When he came back to his (admittedly enhanced) senses, Chat found his face buried in a very familiar red and black dotted costume. It wasn't unpleasant, but given the night's events, somewhat unexpected. "Ladybug?" he said, his voice muffled against the fabric of her embrace. "Am I dead?"

"I certainly hope not."

He straightened up a bit and started to return the hug, and only then realized he was still Chat Noir, claws and all. "That's odd," he said, turning his hand over and looking at the Miraculous.

Sure enough, the ring was not showing the normal green-glowing icon of a paw; but he was still in costume, and the ring itself remained black, indicating Plagg was still resident.

_This has never happened before_.

He blinked, and it was still his enhance Chat Noir vision. He could feel the breeze lifting his feline ears and hear the gentle sounds of the river a few blocks away. He sniffed, and it was still the feline version of his senses, not those of Adrian.

_I can't still be Chat Noir. The ring…?!_

He sniffed the air again, sensing something familiar. Oddly, Ladybug seemed to have some of the same notes that Marinette had. If she'd rescued him from his fall from grace, he reasoned that Ladybug must have brushed up against something that had some Marinette residuals on it.

"Chat? How are you feeling?" Ladybug's face was still turned away.

"I'm not _paw_sitive," he admitted, nonplussed and finding himself short of decent puns. "You can turn around."

"No!" she exclaimed. "Not until you can transform again."

"I never changed," he said, and this time he did reach out to her face, turning her toward him. She looked down and sucked in a quick breath as she spied the claw-tipped glove.

"Milady," he said warmly. "I think you saved me yet again."

Her eyes widened and she took his ring hand into her own, examining the Miraculous. "This can't happen," she said. "You should have reverted." She looked up, worried eyes framed by her mask. "You _have_ to transform back! Your kwami—"

"Maybe it needs a _cat_boot," he purred. "Turn around again and I'll try to manually transform."

Ladybug rolled her eyes but turned away again.

"Plagg, claws in."

Chat waited. The transformation was normally instantaneous, but no flash enveloped him. He stared at his gloved hands, willing them to change back to his alter ego.

He tried again, this hearing the rising panic in his voice. "Plagg - claws in!"

Still nothing. He looked at his hands again, realizing with a certainty he'd never before contemplated that there was no way to get _out_ of his costume short of the Miraculous transformation. Gently, he reached up and tugged on one of his feline ears, feeling them pull but not give way. It wasn't a dream: he was still very much Cat Noir.

"Plagg! Claws in!"

_What is happening to me?_ he thought, with barely restrained panic. He was acutely aware that any of the self-assurance that normally came with being Chat Noir had vanished into the ether, though what was left of his logical brain was pointing out it had more to do with whatever had been shot (literally) into his system.

"_PLAGG! CLAWS-_"

A gentle hand on his arm paused him. "Stand down, kitty," Ladybug said, smiling kindly. "We'll get to the bottom of this, you have my word."

Green eyes ringed with worry met her clear blue. "Of course, milady," he said perfunctorily.

She turned his head to look at the wound on his neck. "Want to walk me through why you were flinging yourself from that balcony over there? And how you wound up with that little beauty?"

* * *

_**Ladybug**_

Chat pulled away from Ladybug and pulled his knees below his chin. She could see the embarrassment tinging the skin around the exposed areas of his face as he wrestled with just how much to tell her. Inwardly she cringed, realizing as Ladybug she was going through the exact same motions Marinette had when Chat had arrived on her doorstep no more than an hour ago.

_Rough night for the Chat_, she thought, not without tenderness.

She reached for his gloved hand. "Chat, it's just you and me. You can tell me anything." She paused, then added, more quietly, "I'll always lend an ear, whenever you need one... though technically you have more to spare than I do..."

He smiled lopsidedly. "Milady, I am not sure you want to know _all_ of it." He sighed, and then quickly sketched in how he had come to be on Marinette's balcony. To his credit, he left nothing out, ending with: "I was mere moments away from telling Marinette just how much I love you, which now that I think about it, would have created a pretty uncomfortable moment."

Chat stared up into the dark night, touching the welt at his neck. "I heard this a fraction of a second before it hit me. I don't understand why I didn't react faster, and I went down pretty hard. Next thing I knew, I was waking up in her bed with a massive headache and a chirping Miraculous." Green eyes flicked to her, ears flattened. "Don't you even say it."

Ladybug smirked. "I didn't have to, _catsa_nova."

He tried to smack her and missed, adding, "I have only ever had eyes for you, milady." He frowned. "Of course, you saw that writ large tonight – last night? - anyway."

Ladybug tactfully steered away from his nightmare, asking instead: "You didn't call up Cataclysm? I assume you reverted after we parted this evening, so it's conceivable you would have been able to call it up again."

"Not while I was sensate," he replied, then grinned sheepishly. "I have no idea if Marinette ravished me while I was defenseless."

Ladybug had the good sense to turn away slightly, hiding the blush. "The only possible explanation is that the Miraculous attempted to counter the effects of whatever hit you, draining itself in the process much like it would had you actually used your super power." She looked up. "I hate to think what might have happened if you'd already used Cataclysm."

Chat's eyes bugged wider. "Now there is a scary thought. Someone has come up with a weapon that can affect us like that?" He paused. "Not even Hawkmoth has thrown that at us."

"It only partially explains why you can't transform back, though. If you were totally drained, you should have transformed completely. It's almost as if you're stuck in default mode."

Chat looked at his costume again. "I can't stay like this," he said. He started to fiddle with his ring. "Maybe if I just take this off -"

"No!" Ladybug said forcefully, placing a hand over his ring. "We don't know what would happen once you take it off – it's safer to keep it as is until we know more about what happened."

Chat ran a paw through his wild mane, an affectation Ladybug found strangely familiar. "My, uh, alter ego will be missed in a few hours, Ladybug." He shrugged. "I'm open to suggestions, especially any that require me to leave Paris immediately."

"Well, I can't take you to Master Fu while you are Chat Noir." Ladybug eyed her partner. "But he can go to you – I know he visited your alter ego at home. Do you feel well enough to get there?"

"Same problem," he sighed. "I've enough left in the tank to get there, but Chat Noir can't be where, uh, my alter ego is expected to be." He paused. "Although... I might be able to make it work," he added thoughtfully. "I'll buzz you on the bug phone when I get there. But you have to promise not to use the GPS function – otherwise you'll know where I live."

"Fair enough," she said. "Now get going, kitty."

Chat Noir stood up and did his customary bow-and-a-kiss, albeit with less grace than usual. "As you wish, milady," he replied, slightly unsteadily. He bounded toward the edge and hurled himself over; Ladybug followed and watched as he executed a typically over the top barrel roll to land gently on the street below. He retrieved his baton, which he extended into the night, disappearing in a matter of moments. She popped open her tracker for a brief moment to ensure he was still moving before disengaging the function and starting her own trek toward the Guardian of the Miraculous.


	4. Partial Answers

_**Chat Noir**_

The first early hints of the coming dawn had begun to streak the skyline of Paris when Chat Noir landed on a roof across from the Agreste mansion. Contrary to the show he'd put on for Ladybug, he was feeling anything _but _normal; each movement he made was painful, and it had taken him three times longer than normal to get home. Every fiber of his being was exhausted and the idea of even a little catnap – nightmares notwithstanding – seemed like catnip-laced nirvana.

He caught himself slumping against his staff. _Just not on this rooftop_.

Chat doublechecked the area was clear and made the final swoop toward the rear of the mansion and his open bathroom window. With what little energy he had left, he managed to slide through the panel and make a classic feline landing on all fours before allowing himself to collapse on the cool marble face first. Those precious few minutes with Ladybug had recharged his spirit; too bad it hadn't recharged his batteries. He was starting to think he might understand what Plagg felt like after he called up Cataclysm.

An ear perked up at the thought. _I wonder…_

Calling on his last reserves, he pulled himself up and stealthy stalked toward the sliding door to the main space of his room – _Adrian's room_, he corrected – cocking a feline ear at the door. It appeared to be clear.

He stood back and reached for the handle, pausing only when he inadvertently caught his reflection in the bathroom mirror. Chat had seen video of his exploits multiple times to be sure, but had never really _seen_ himself in full Noir (short of that near disaster of a music video shoot a few months earlier). Turning fully to face the length of the mirror, he took in the ears, the eyes, the mask, the suit; it was _him_, of course, but a version of his personality that he never allowed out while living life as more-or-less subservient Adrian. The mass of hair seemed to say it all: unkempt and wild, everything he couldn't be as his alter ego.

_Maybe being stuck as Chat Noir isn't such a bad thing._ He turned slightly, then added: _Plagg's right, I might have to rethink the bell..._

He slid the door open and slipped out into his room. His phone was still in the dock, fully charged. Notably it was showing the current time – he had less than an hour before Nathalie would "awaken" him for school.

Chat kept the lights out, making use of his night vision to rearrange the homework on his desk – mussing it up enough to give the appearance of effort interrupted. He then slid his trash can toward the bed, and proceeded (as only a good kitty could do) to go through a box and a half of Kleenex. As the first rays of light started to shine through the window, he pulled the bedclothes askew, making it feel as though he had tossed and turned uncomfortably all evening.

A feline ear twisted and heard the first steps on the lower stairs heading in his direction.

Quickly he grabbed his phone from the dock, and quietly took a single leap toward the fridge where Plagg kept his stash of Camembert cheese. He didn't need the extra feline senses to know that it was well stocked; he pulled several slices out and then made a second giant leap back into the bathroom, locking the door behind him before sliding down into a sitting position against it, exhausted. A quick search in the music store led to an audio file that he queued up; he then waited, contemplating the odiferous cheese. With a grimace, he popped the slices into his mouth one at a time, chewing minimally and realizing suddenly his sense of taste had likewise been augmented by the Miraculous.

_Figures_, he grimaced, as the acrid flavor of the cheese became almost too much to bare. He felt an involuntary retch bubbling up and managed to stifle it as the footsteps approached his bedroom door.

Nathalie knocked perfunctorily and entered. "Adrian?" she called. "Time to get up." She walked into the bedroom, flipping on the lights and quickly seeing the bed, the Kleenex and the light under the door to the bathroom. "Adrian? Are you all right?"

A loud flush issued from the bathroom, followed by some unearthly moaning. "I - I don't think I'm feeling well," Adrian's muffled voice said. "Dinner doesn't seem to have settled well, or I picked up whatever stomach bug has been going around school. I also seem to have a terrible migration on top of it all."

"Do you want to stay home today?"

"It might be best," came the muffled reply.

"I'll inform your father," she said, "and send for the doctor-"

"No!" came the forceful response. "I mean, I think a little rest and proximity to the bathroom is all I need."

"Okay," was Nathalie's skeptical reply. "If you change your mind, I'll be downstairs." Whatever response was lost in another loud flush of the toilet.

Chat waited with one feline ear pressed to the door until he was sure Nathalie had retreated to his father's den, then dropped his phone to the tile and rested the back of his head on the door, eyes closed. He'd intended to use the "sick student" file but the cheese hadn't gone down as well as he'd hoped. The moaning had been unintentional and very real.

And yet, he thought he felt just a smidge better.

Or not. He fought back another wave of nausea, and barely managed to make it to the toilet before what passed for breakfast made an inglorious reappearance. Afterward, he held his head to the side of the cool porcelain and tried to force some calm to his roiling stomach.

Eyes still closed, he reached to the small of his back and retrieved his baton. He flipped it open and was relieved to see it ring straight through to his partner's expectant face. "Operation Rescue Kitty is a go," he whispered. "I think I bought a day, not much more milady."

"No worries," came the quick reply. "The package is already enroute to you and should be there soon."

"Thank you," Chat said. "I'd ask you to come along, but..."

"Exactly." She laughed as he slid the baton closed.

* * *

_**Marinette**_

Describing what had happened to Chat Noir had not been easy, especially given her personal need to skirt around the shoals of Chat's feelings toward her. Master Fu seemed to understand this and did not press her on many points unless it was necessary for a fuller understanding of the situation. At length, he had consulted the images he had taken of the Miraculous Grimoire but had come up empty handed. Nothing in the book even remotely referenced the dart that Marinette had pulled from Chat Noir.

"There is no precedent for this," Fu said, his hand thoughtfully stroking his beard. "What you are describing seems outside of anything an akumatized victim could come up with as a weapon – something so specifically targeted to a Miraculous holder."

Marinette nodded; she had thought the same thing. "So, you agree that this was an intentional attack against Chat Noir, and possibly Ladybug, had she been there as well?"

Fu inclined his head toward the dart, safely stored in a plastic container on the counter behind them. "This has to be very dark magic," he said. "To essentially drain just enough energy from the Miraculous to make it nearly impossible to use, but leave just enough to keep the wearer transformed... it's a brilliant tactic and a deadly weapon." He continued to stroke his beard. "Essentially, he is caught between both identities. The real question is how much of each is present."

Marinette nodded again. "What if Chat takes off the ring? Would his kwami be released?"

The Master stood up from his mat and went the side table where a small tea set was perched. "I suspect he won't be able to remove it, actually," he replied as he poured a small steaming cup, and offered a second to Marinette. "But if he could, the result would be the same: Chat Noir will remain Chat Noir until we find a way to safely recharge the Miraculous."

They parted ways soon after they finished their tea, Master Fu off to pay a personal visit to Chat and Ladybug to get home in order to have Marinette be on time for school. She was nearly there when her yo-yo phone buzzed. She swung down to a nearby rooftop and flipped the device open.

On her small screen, she squinted at the image of Chat. He looked like he had gone another nine rounds with a supervillain and was doing a poor job of hiding that fact. "Operation Rescue Kitty is a go," he whispered, reminding her that Chat was not in friendly territory. "I think I bought a day, not much more milady."

"No worries," she lied, as she was increasingly worried about her partner. "The package is already enroute to you and should be there soon."

"Thank you," he said, and then smiled wanly. "I'd ask you to come along, but…"

"Exactly!" she forced a laugh and a smile as he disconnected.

She continued to hold her yo-yo, staring at the now blank phone display for a long, thoughtful moment. Long enough that her concern for Chat's wellbeing had her seriously considering flipping on her Find-A-Chat system. Master Fu hadn't given her anything to be optimistic about; in fact, she was starting to fear the real possibility that her partner might never return to normal.

Her gloved finger hovered over the GPS activation button.

Would it hurt for her to know who Chat really was, under the mask? She already knew the identities of four other Miraculous holders, and so far, that hadn't led to the end of the world as they knew it. She was _Ladybug_, for crying out loud; if she couldn't protect Chat and/or his alter ego, who could?

Yet the two of them held the most powerful of the Miraculous jewels. Keeping their identities secret, even from each other, was a prudent precaution that would protect not only themselves, but anyone they cared for. Ladybug caught a glance at one of the many billboards sporting Adrien's smiling face pitching that horrid perfume and nodded to herself.

_Anyone we care about._

No, she had to protect the secrets they both held. And she had to admit, despite all of his foibles, she really did care for Chat.

_Just not in the same was as he clearly cared for her_, she mentally added.

Ladybug snapped the yo-yo shut and started to swing down to her balcony and the promise of a few minutes rest before breakfast.


	5. The Matador

_**Chat Noir**_

Not knowing when Master Fu would appear, Chat was at loose ends. He didn't trust that Nathalie wouldn't make a sudden appearance, so he found himself straining his feline hearing to the limit and hanging close to the bathroom in case he had to make a mad dash to safety. It wasn't until the ding of a new text message startled him badly enough that he'd dropped into his standard attack stance, baton at the ready, that he realized he'd perhaps ratcheted his paranoia level up a bit too high. He took a deep breath and retreated to the bathroom, where his phone was propped up on the vanity.

He tapped the screen with the pad of his finger, and it came alive with a message from his best friend, Nino.

_Dude? R U OK?_

He smiled, tried to unlock his phone to respond, and was immediately frustrated in his attempt. Chat rolled his eyes when he realized the phone's facial recognition software couldn't see enough points of comparison on his masked visage; the eyes alone were probably throwing it off. He cancelled the operation and tried to plug in his manual PIN number, a tricky feat given his claws. How women with long nails made it work was beyond him…

_Sick day,_ he laboriously typed. _Stomach bug; back tomorrow._

It sounded more optimistic than he was feeling, but there was no need to have Nino running over to check on him. On the plus side, it would cement the story that Adrien was home.

_U R missing the action!_

That was confusing. _What action? _he typed, dreading the answer.

_Ladybug is here!_

Chat pulled out his baton and triggered the tracking mechanism. Sure enough, Ladybug was at their school. He dialed her and she picked up, though she was looking off screen. "I'm fine," she said breathlessly. "Stay put and wait for Master Fu. I've got this." And then she hung up.

"Seriously?" he frowned to the empty screen.

"You should listen to her, Chat Noir," a familiar voice said from just behind him.

Chat jumped up and turned in a single motion, claws out, baton spinning, before he recognized Master Fu. "Master?" he said quizzically. "How did I not hear you approach?" he asked, as he replaced the baton and relaxed.

"Not every superpower is strength or speed," Fu said cryptically. "The important part is that I have arrived unseen. Now, let me see that wound of yours…"

* * *

_**Ladybug**_

She was _seriously_ getting tired of battling students with an axe to grind.

This time around, their exchange student from Madrid had been rebuffed by (of course) Chloe, and had been akumatized into a wild-eyed Matador who, with a single touch of his red cape or the banderillero it was draped over, turned his victims into vengeful bulls. By the time she'd transformed into Ladybug, more than half of the school had been altered, though it looked as if Chloe (of course) had so far escaped his ministrations. She hadn't had time to search for Adrian, either, and hoped he had safely gotten away from the melee.

Marinette had been late to school; she'd intended a quick catnap before breakfast but had fallen into a deep slumber that her father had needed to shake her out of. By that point it was close to first bell, so she'd streaked out the door and had just made the courtyard when the Matador made his appearance.

Ladybug held her hands over her hears, trying to block out the cacophony the courtyard of animals was making. She felt more than heard her yo-yo phone buzz and perfunctorily answered it.

"I'm fine," she snapped without even looking at the screen. "Stay put and wait for Master Fu. I've got this." She hoped the sheer force of her command would keep Chat safe and out of the line of fire.

Not bothering to wait for a response, she clapped the phone closed and looked again at the situation. Without her partner, she was going to have to be a bit more careful in timing her Lucky Charm. It was the obvious play to contain this matador fellow to the school, and the courtyard seemed ready made for just such an action.

She put the Lucky Charm thought on hold and hooked her yo-yo to a crossbeam. Swiftly she arched toward the main entrance of the building, landing just behind the massive doors. Grabbing one side, she flipped her yo-yo around the door on the far side and yanked the portal closed. Fortunately for her, the doors swung _in _meaning her akumatized classmates would be less likely to push their way out into the street and the city proper.

_Now for the Matador_.

She turned and found that he was still chasing what few non-transformed students were left in the courtyard. A quick count made her think that most were safely hiding elsewhere; there was no way to know where Chloe – or Adrien, for that matter - had gone, but given the guy's ranting, it seemed like a safe bet he'd not found her yet. Ladybug needed to get a better look at him. But from what angle?

Ladybug realized this was the part of the program where she'd normally bounce some ideas off Chat. She found herself musing that he'd long ago stopped rushing headlong into direct confrontation, comfortably preferring instead to follow her lead or add helpful insights into her plan. She had to admit, she missed having him at her side.

_No way I'm ever telling him that! _she thought. _He'll be insufferably smug forever._

Chat's call had interrupted her focus, and it was a bit unsettling finding herself thinking more about him than the here-and-now. But there wasn't time to contemplate what it meant. Ladybug crept closer to the edge of the space, searching for inspiration and coming up completely empty.

Distracted, she barely rotated up and away from a sharp-ended banderillero that the Matador had hurled in her direction; it managed to graze her shin and shear a tiny tear in the fabric of her leg. "Ow!" she exclaimed, surprised that the weapon had affected her. Ladybug took off for the corner of the space, hurtling several angry bulls that seemed to be keying in on the dominant red of her costume.

_How much better could this day possibly get?_ she wondered as she hopped over a final steer and landed behind one of the massive support beams that held up the wrought iron roof of the courtyard. It wasn't much cover but did offer her a few seconds to catch her breath and contemplate her next move. The stinging sensation from her shin had subsided to dull ache.

Carefully, she crept around the support beam and hooked her yo-yo to a cross beam above her, retreating upward a fraction of a moment before an angry set of horns rammed into the space she had been occupying. Unhooking the yo-yo, she let the arc of her descent land her on the upper walkway of the space, allowing her a better vantage point. Still, she was coming up empty in the plan department.

_Time to trust in Ladybug Luck, I guess. I hope it's something I can handle solo!_

She stood up and started to invoke her spell, only to be tackled by a blur of black fabric.

* * *

**AN: This chapter is shorter than normal, as the cliffhanger just felt correct at this point. And just a warning, though I plan on posting every few days, there may be a longer break at the end of this week due to my "real world" schedule. Thanks for hanging in there (by a claw...) **


	6. Déjà vu All Over Again

_**Chat Noir**_

Each second Master Fu spent swabbing his neck felt to Chat as if it were a physical slap. He knew it was unreasonable, but every fiber was twitching toward leaping out the window and joining Ladybug. It was bad enough that it had manifested itself physically – both his foot _and_ his tail were tapping against the tile irritably.

"...see what this might be, based on what Ladybug told me earlier," Master Fu was saying.

"Right," Chat said, not really listening. His eyes strayed to the window.

Fu placed a hand on Chat's face and turned his head back toward him. "Adrien, listen to me. I don't know why you are still transformed, and I am not certain how much of your powers you actually have access to." He paused. "I also don't know how much damage you, your kwami or the Miraculous have taken. And if there is damage, how much of it is irreversible."

He paused again. "This is _serious_."

Chat's green eyes widened a little. "Okay," he said. "Look, can we discuss this later? Ladybug -"

"Explicitly told you to lay low," Fu reminded him.

"Not one of my better tendencies," Chat replied with chagrin. "Especially when she is in danger." Chat sniffed the air, an action that caught Fu's attention. "Like she is now!" Chat exclaimed. "I've got to go!"

Fu placed his hand on Chat's arm, temporarily pausing his leap toward the window. "I'll be back at sundown," he said simply. "Be sure you are here."

Chat nodded quickly and bounded through the window, extending his staff for a massive vault that carried him over one building and nearly another. He tried to ignore the queasy feeling in his stomach, writing it off to the Camembert and not his nearly palpable fear he would be too late to help Ladybug. The shrinking part of his logical brain warned him that he'd never been that wound up about her before; nor, it reminded him, had he been able to scent her from so far away.

_That was new_, he thought.

One more vault and he had no more time to consider anything else: the school loomed into view, and his feline ears caught the sounds of commotion from the courtyard. And off to one side, the very particular _ziiing!_ of Ladybug's yo-yo retracting. In a swift motion he redirected himself toward one of the skylights on the roof and landed; holding the underside of the opening, he poked his head through and found Ladybug just below him.

_She's still safe_, he thought, watching some guy in an outrageous flamenco outfit start up the stairs to her, brandishing a cape and hurling some very sharp objects at her. _Relatively speaking... but what triggered my anxiety?_

Chat scanned the space again, and then a third time, trying to ignore the creeping sensation that he was missing something. He'd been so certain back in his room that he'd needed to get to Ladybug's side, and not identifying the immediate danger to her was increasing his anxiety. Oddly, it _wasn't _Flamenco Guy, although it certainly qualified as a fashion emergency.

_Even I know you don't mix those two color palettes, and I'm just a model. A good looking one, to be sure…_

Ladybug seemed to be intent on something and hadn't seen him yet. He started to tee up a cat pun to announce his arrival when his ears picked up the same sort of whistling noise he'd heard a moment before being hit in the neck. He quickly swiveled in several directions until he could pinpoint the source: in what felt like super slow motion, he could _see_ the dart this time, coming in at an angle from the opposite side of the roof. It was moving fast and directly targeting Ladybug.

There was no time. He leaned back and then launched himself at Ladybug, tackling her just as she appeared to be standing up to use her Lucky Charm. The arm she had started to fling the yo-yo up with instead curled around his shoulders, and they twisted through the air, the yo-yo trailing behind them, unused.

"Gotcha!" he heard himself say as they twisted again.

It was only then he felt the sting in his back.

* * *

_**Ladybug**_

She instinctively curled into the embrace and allowed Chat to control their tumble on the far landing of the courtyard. He released her after another revolution, and they rolled out together into side-by-side standing positions.

"Purrfect timing as always," the cocky SOB said, one masked eyebrow raised as he stepped toward her. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Ladybug answered angrily. "Why are you here? I _explicitly_ told you to stay-"

"My feline senses told me you'd be targeted," he interrupted, and twisted around to show her his back. "I'm pawsitive this was intended for you."

Despite the chaos reigning down around them, Ladybug's jaw dropped. There, directly between Chat's shoulder blades, was another dart-like object. And as she watched, it was attempting to bury itself ever deeper into the fabric of Chat's costume. She stepped over to him quickly and pulled the needle-like object out. Holding it to the light, she could see a tiny reservoir of liquid at one end, partially filled.

"Master Fu will want to look at this. Good thing your suit is protecting you," she said as she stepped back.

"Yeah," he said, a bit unsteadily. "About that… I'm not feline so well..."

He tried to reach out for her before collapsing at her feet.

She dropped to her knees beside his prone form; it was as before: pulse racing, panting, completely out. He'd been hit again. And this time it had gone _through_ his suit – another something that should never happen.

And this time, there was no bedroom to hide him in.

Frantically she looked around and saw with some cynicism that the Matador had taken that particular moment to spot her and was now busily making his way toward her. He paused on the steps from the lower level, presumably getting the standard "take their Miraculouses" speech from Hawkmoth, before continuing toward them.

She turned again, trying to find some place she could safely put Chat.

_There!_

Ladybug scooped up Chat and dashed to the science classroom directly behind them and kicked open the door; on the near wall were the lockers students used to store their personal items while working through their lab assignments.

"I know you won't like this," she said, well aware of Chat's distaste for small spaces. She popped open the nearest locker and shoved Chat inside with little ceremony. "I'll be back before you wake up," she promised, and tried not to think about the alternative as she locked the door and returned to the outer landing.

Out of options, she called up her Lucky Charm, and was rewarded with a giant boombox, complete with a pre-loaded CD of (she checked the label) "arena crowd cheers." Against her better judgment, she left Chat where he was and swung around the Matador to the school's main office; as she suspected, the PA system was sitting on the reception desk and it took just a few moments for her to start up the CD and broadcast it throughout the facility.

By the time she'd returned to the courtyard, the Matador was already bowing to the ooohs and aaahs on the tape, assuming he was having the performance of a lifetime. Ladybug hadn't seen the enchantment occur but made an intuitive guess that the akuma was hidden in the classic beret he was wearing.

She looped the yo-yo through an exposed beam in the courtyard, swung over the matador and nabbed the beret with her free hand, landing nearly back where she started. The Matador howled and started back up the stairs toward her; she had only moments to break the spell.

It was made of an oddly solid material; simply tearing it apart wasn't an option, nor trying to crush it under her foot. With the Matador literally breathing down her neck, she managed to finally crack it open with her spinning yo-yo attack. As she did so, Ladybug flashed on an image of Chat's ring hand and realized the massive disadvantage they were now at without his Cataclysm ability.

Ladybug was rewarded with the appearance of the akuma, which she quickly captured and disposed of. A few moments later, her Miraculous Ladybug spell had restored the school to normal. But she didn't wait to see the final transformations and instead shot back into the science classroom to retrieve her partner. She popped open the door and Cat Noir rolled out on top of her, still insensate.

She frowned. Miraculous Ladybug _always_ restored everything. Chat should have reverted; the fact that he didn't led more credence to Master Fu's theory that this was unknown magic they were dealing with.

A shiver ran down her spine as Ladybug realized she was scared. Worried and scared.

Desperately, she tossed Chat over her shoulder and swooped out of the building. For the first time in a long time, she had absolutely no idea what she should do.

And it completely terrified her.


	7. Safe Haven

_**Chat Noir**_

This time, the pain brought with it waves of nausea.

He could feel the wind ruffling his hair, and thought he smelled Ladybug's distinctive scent. But the nausea he'd fought back earlier was now so intense that he opted to keep his eyes closed in order to focus on keeping his innards from coming out.

"Ladybug?" he croaked. "Did I die again?"

"Not now, kitty," she said as the continued to swing. "I've got to find a place to stash you for a few minutes while I transform."

"Marinette's," he said simply, before choking back something vile. He promised whatever gods were looking out for Chat Noir he'd never eat Camembert again. Or maybe they were punishing him for _not_ eating it in the first place? If he survived, he'd have to have a long conversation with Plagg…

Ladybug didn't answer, but he felt them shift direction and at length landed gently. The smell of the bakery was more intense than usual for Chat; each individual spice seemed to be assaulting him and he halfheartedly swiped at his nose to clear the air. Sound, sight, taste and now smell: _all _of his enhanced senses appeared to be in overdrive and threatened to give him a very real migraine. He thought back to what Master Fu had tried to tell him and wondered if his inability to transform back to Adrien was actually masking the fact that he was transforming _into_ something else entirely.

He decided not to think about it too much. At least, not yet.

Gently, Ladybug placed him face first into the chaise lounge he'd spotted on a prior visit, adjusting the umbrella to shade him slightly from the mid-morning sun. The warm rays felt oddly wonderful on the exposed parts of his body, and without thinking he started to purr.

She leaned into one of feline ears and whispered softer than a human could hear: "Stay put this time, kitty. I mean it."

Chat turned his head and tried to smile. "Anything for you, milady," he said tightly.

"I'll be back in less than an hour." He heard her move away, and then step back. "Master Fu?"

At that, Chat's eyes did open. "He took a sample from my wound, and said he'd run a few tests on it." He closed them again. "He said a lot of other stuff, too, but I tuned most of it out. I'm to meet him back at my alter-ego's place at sunset."

He heard an exasperated sigh from his partner. "Not helpful, Chat."

"Nobody's purrfect," he murmured.

She chuckled, and he heard her toss her yo-yo into the sky and take off, trailing the chirp of her earrings.

He closed his eyes again for what he hoped would be a quick catnap, willing his body to behave somewhat normally. But sleep was clearly out of the question – the noise from Paris seemed to have been turned up to max on his personal headphones; normally he could filter and tune out the cacophony, but today he was simply incapable of blocking any of it. In fact, he was pretty sure he'd just heard Ladybug's transformation somewhere close by.

_She must have cut it close._

"Chat?" came a quiet query. "What are you doing here?"

He cracked an eye open and there was Marinette, head poking out of the skylight, concerned expression on her face. At least, he _thought _it was Marinette. His vision was a bit hazy and her scent wasn't quite right – it was that same strange mixture of Ladybug and Marinette he had detected earlier with Ladybug, now that he thought about it. But both women had been in the space just a few minutes apart. No wonder he was having trouble separating out their unique notes.

Except, normally he would be able to do just that.

_Something is really, really wrong with me. _

"Sorry to drop in on you," he said aloud. "Ladybug needed a spot to stash me for a bit and this was the first place I thought of that specialized in cat treats." He flipped to his side, ignoring the wave of vertigo that came with the simple movement. "Wait, aren't you supposed to be in school?"

A shadow passed across her face as she came the rest of the way out and joined him on the roof. "Two words: akumatized villain."

Chat smiled and played along. "I didn't know you went to _that_ school," he said. "Not my finest hour," he continued, trying to push himself up. "Oof," he said, quickly closing his eyes and swallowing back another wave of nausea. "Maybe I'll stay like this for a bit longer."

Marinette moved toward the chaise and he slid his legs over to make room for her to sit. After a moment, she did, concern lacing every line on her face. "You look awful, Chat."

"I've been better," he admitted. "Every muscle is complaining, I can smell half the city from here, and the noise is almost deafening," he added, ears twisting in agony. "I seem to have lost the ability to manage my enhanced senses. It's almost information overload."

"You can hear… how far away?"

"A few miles, I think, now." He cracked open an eye. "I think I also was able to smell Ladybug from my – I mean, from quite a distance, too." He sniffed again. "She's still pretty close, actually," he said, confusion crossing his face. "Or not," he smiled tiredly. "Like I said, I'm not sure I'm totally in control anymore."

He nearly missed Marinette's change in expression. "What?"

Marinette smiled weakly. "I'd offer to take you to a doctor or something, but I imagine there isn't a veterinarian in Paris that could handle your case."

Chat grimaced. "No respect, even from my feline fan club," he murmured. "Ladybug will be back in a bit. She'll have a plan," he said, hope infusing his words. "She always does."

There was that expression again. He frowned.

Marinette abruptly stood up. "You know what? I think I do have something down in the bakery that a kitty like you might like. Let me run downstairs-" she started.

Chat's eyes flew wide open, and his pupils shrunk, ears twisting in response to a particular whistle he was coming to fear. Without regard for the waves of nausea or the deep muscle pain, he flipped out of the chaise and pressed himself flat atop Marinette. Tiny projectiles flew a few inches above his back, narrowly missing him.

In one smooth motion, he rolled the two of them toward the edge of the deck, away from the skylight. Coming to Marinette's was a rookie mistake: clearly whoever was after him anticipated that move and had quickly located him.

"Hold tight," he commanded, and was rewarded with Marinette hugging him a bit harder.

From there, he was on automatic, leaping away from the balcony and alternatively pole vaulting over and running across various rooftops of the city. He knew he wasn't thinking completely clearly, only following a single set of directives: get Marinette somewhere safe. Contact Ladybug.

_Hide_.

He couldn't take her to Master Fu's, even if he knew where he lived. Maybe Ayla's place?

No, the more he thought about it, the less he liked putting any more of his friends in danger. It had all started with his impromptu visit to Marinette last night, and he had no desire to repeat the mistake. He shifted directions again, hoping his quasi-random movements would prevent whoever was tracking him from keeping up while at the same time not having any real destination in mind.

He vaulted another building, and took a quick self-assessment. The adrenaline rush that had propelled him into action was crashing, meaning he probably only had a few more massive movements before he'd crumple himself. Chat hadn't heard anything or seen anything for a bit and decided to trust that he might have moved them beyond the immediate danger. But where was he?

Chat stopped on the next rooftop, and scanned the horizon, not recognizing anything. How could he be lost? That had never happened before. He squeezed his eyes closed against the encroaching darkness, took a deep breath, and opened them again.

As he did so, he heard a slight gasp from Marinette. "Marinette? Are you still with me?"

"Y-yes," she stammered. "I didn't realize you knew Adrien."

"Adrian?" he replied, quizzically. He followed her gaze and saw the familiar roofline of the Agreste mansion.

_Whoops!_

* * *

_**Marinette**_

It wasn't all that rare to have Chat Noir carrying her through the sky; but lately, _she_ seemed to be the one grabbing him in midair. But she understood his actions in wanting to protect his friend and didn't protest as he leapt off of her balcony and away from danger.

Troubling her more was the fact that they had clearly been followed from the school. Chat seemed to think the same thing, as his movements through the city appeared entirely random in an effort to shake whoever had tracked them down. But she could sense in his movements that whatever reserve of strength he had tapped into was running low; he stumbled once, nearly missed a vault, and thudded to a stop on a rooftop in a terrible landing he'd normally make ten times out of ten.

As Chat paused, visibly struggling to determine his next move, she, too, scanned the horizon. Looming large to their left was the iconic Agreste mansion and she couldn't help the surprised gasp that escaped her lips.

_Why are we here?_

"Marinette?" Chat asked. "Are you still with me?"

"Y—yes," she stammered. "I didn't realize you knew Adrian."

"Adrien?" Chat's head snapped in the direction of her gaze, and several emotions flashed across his face in rapid succession before he managed to compose himself. He turned back toward her. "Uh, Adrian who?" he asked, not very convincingly.

"Adrien Agreste? The model?"

Chat shook his mane, again just a little to forced. "Nope. Doesn't ring a bell." He looked down across her shoulder and suddenly smiled. "Ah! Perfect!"

He gently tightened his grip on Marinette and launched them off the roof and away from the Agreste mansion, landing atop the roof of a small theater. He tried and found the roof access stairwell unlocked and hustled Marinette down into the space, pulling the door shut behind them. The stairwell was lit dimly, so Chat took Marinette by the hand and safely led her down several flights before stopping at a landing and leaning his back against the concrete.

"Sorry, Princess," he said, breathing hard. "I've got to take a second here…." Chat closed his eyes and slowly slid down into a sitting position.

Marinette sat beside him. "You're not doing well at all," she said. "Let me go for some help."

He held her arm, preventing her from leaving. "I'll contact Ladybug," he said with effort. "I've gotten you out of immediate danger, but you can't go home. Do you have anyone you can get to quickly?"

Marinette pulled on her lip. "Well," she thought, "Ayla would be safer, but I am closer to Adrien." She paused, as Chat had made some sort of choking sound. "Are you sure you are okay?"

"I'll recover," he said. Then, after a long pause, he continued: "Go to Adrien's, then," he said thoughtfully. "Tell Adrien I sent you. That might ease your entry."

Marinette's eyes bugged out. "You _do _know him, then!"

Chat closed his eyes again, nodding. "Yes," he said. "Much like you know Ladybug, I think."

She froze. Was he saying what she _thought_ he was saying? "Uh—"

"Remember the Evilstrator?" he asked. "I'd assumed my cat-about-town act had wrapped my paws around your heart, but…" he laughed weekly. "Ladybug sent me to protect you." He paused. "She didn't have to say it, but I was pretty sure the two of you had talked a few times before."

Marinette nodded slowly. "We've bumped into each other more than once," she said, which was technically true.

"Go," he said, as he pulled his baton out, preparatory to using the phone. "Stay safe."

She stood up and dashed down the stairs, intentionally trying to put some distance between them so she could transform back into Ladybug.

* * *

_**Cat Noir**_

He listened as her footsteps retreated away from him and waited until he heard her exit the building before slumping even further against the wall. Just holding his baton was draining, so he gathered what wits were left and activated his phone.

Ladybug picked up immediately. "Chat! Where are you?"

"No time to explain," he said. "I'm headed to the Agreste mansion – remember where it is?"

She paused, eyes widening. "Yes, I do."

"Adrien owes me a favor," he said. "I'm going to have him hide Marinette for a bit since I seem to have inadvertently made her a target in all of this, just as much as we are. Can you meet me there in fifteen? The window by the bathroom will be open."

"On my way now." She clicked off.

The baton fell out of his hand, and he struggled to retrieve it. He'd just made a mistake – Chat Noir had no reason to know about the bathroom window – and hoped Ladybug hadn't picked up on it. Lethargically, he hauled himself back into a prone position, pulled himself up and started back to the roof. Somehow, he managed to vault himself back over to the mansion, noted as he soared over the side wall Marinette was just then arriving at the main gate. He swung around to his room and in through the bathroom window. He didn't even try to land, just rolled into a crash that carried him across the tile, coming to rest with his nose a few inches from the closed door of his bathroom.

_Glorious, Adrien. The mighty Chat Noir laid out like a bear rug._

Chat pulled himself up and leaned an ear against the door once more. Fortunately, the other room was clear. But as he expected, the intercom chirped from Nathalie. "Adrien? Someone is here to see you. Are you well enough to take a visitor?"

He reached to the panel by the vanity, a claw edge used to activate the intercom. "Sure," he croaked.

"I'll bring her up."

He released the intercom and then used the edge of the vanity to pull himself back up again. Quickly, he scanned his vanity and determined what sort of movie magic he might use to pull off _this _stunt.

_Wait, not _movie_ magic…! _

* * *

**AN: This has started to flow in a direction I didn't anticipate; despite my pre-planning, Chat and Ladybug appear to have had other ideas. I'm going to let it go a bit and see where this duo take me. This is still scoping out to land between fifteen and twenty parts. Hang in there!  
**


	8. Model Magic

_**Marinette**_

She had only been to the mansion as Marinette on a handful of occasions, perhaps the same number of times she'd appeared as Ladybug if she actually counted them up. As expected, Gabriel Agreste was nowhere to be seen. His assistant had led her up the stairs to Adrien's room with little to no conversation, showed her into Adrien's room, and then closed the door behind her.

The room was shrouded in darkness, the heavy curtains pulled closed against the midday sun. She crept into the space, calling quietly, "Adrien?"

"Over here," was the equally quiet reply.

She rounded the corner and found Adrien in his bed, blanket drawn to his chin. In the semi-darkness, his hair seemed to be more unkempt than normal and was spilling out from beneath what she thought was a knit beanie. He also appeared to be wearing some sort of thick white ointment, lathered liberally all over his face, complete with (she had to look twice to be sure) cucumbers over his eyes.

"Are you okay?" she asked, eyes wide.

"Glamorous life of a model," he said, the laughter present in his voice. "Actually, I have something of a migraine and believe it or not this is the fastest way to combat it." He paused. "Just don't divulge my beauty secrets to anyone…"

Marinette laughed. This bit of insight into her crush was not something she had ever expected to be privileged to see. Somehow it endeared her even further to Adrien.

"So now you know why I'm not at school today," he said. "What brings you to my doorstep, Prin—Marinette?"

She bit her lip. "Actually, Chat Noir sent me. Something awful is out there, and he thinks I'm a target."

Adrien started to sit up, groaned, and thought better of it. "Chat sent you?"

"Yes." She paused. Then: "You've never mentioned that you knew him."

He chuckled. "It's not something that comes up in conversation," he said. "He's not, like, a best friend or anything. But he's dropped by a few times and helped me out of a few… situations." He paused, was on the verge of adding something, and seemed to think better of it.

"This is the safest place in the city, and you're welcome to stay as long as you like."

"R-r-really?" she stammered. _Adrien _was inviting her to stay! In his house! In _his _room!?

"Yes. But you're going to have to move up to my library for a bit so I can get to the bathroom," he said. "I, uh, well…" he paused. "I need to rinse off this round and reapply a new one. But suffice it to say I don't want you to see any, uh, exposed skin, shall we say…"

"Oh!" Marinette blushed deeply at the unbidden images that leapt into her mind. "That is another model secret that I will keep for sure," she said, as she started up the spiral staircase to the vast library above his room.

"No peeking!" he said.

Marinette turned toward the bookshelves and closed her eyes. "I promise," she said.

She heard him slowly get out of the bed and make his way over to the bathroom, pausing briefly before going through the door and sliding it closed behind him. Marinette wasn't certain, but for a moment, she thought she'd heard something close to Chat's bell as Adrien had moved through the space. Water started to run in the sink.

The door slid open again. "Marinette?"

"Still here, and still not looking, Adrien."

_Wait_, she thought, _that voice was –_

Chat landed softly next to her on the landing. "I'm glad you made it," he said, green eyes glowing in the near darkness.

"Chat! What are you doing here?"

"I'm afraid I shocked Adrien," he said. "He nearly leapt out of his skin when he found me in the bathroom. He really needs to lock that window." In the semi-darkness, she could still see his eyes crinkle in laughter. "I called in a favor. It was easier for me to have Ladybug meet me here, so Adrien has agreed to an impromptu roomful of visitors."

"He's okay with it?"

"Yeah. In fact, he's decided to take a long sauna to try and sweat out that migraine of his so LB and I can have a private conversation." He paused. "You don't mind waiting out here for him while I meet with Ladybug, do you? Adrien feels bad about leaving you alone for a bit, so he's having his personal chef prepare some munchies you while you hang out."

Her heart leapt at the idea that Adrien was even _concerned _about her waiting for him. "I'll be fine. Thanks, Chat," she said.

He held her for a moment, then dropped over the edge and disappeared back into the bathroom.

Marinette opened her purse and Tikki flew out. "Am I dreaming?" she asked the kwami.

"No," Tikki said. "This is really happening."

* * *

_**Chat Noir**_

He flipped the sauna to "steam mode" and switched on the satellite radio embedded in the wall, tuning it to an all-talk station. He finished placing the mannequin from his closet into the space, retreated out into the bathroom proper and closed the frosted glass door. The shadow wouldn't pass muster if Ladybug really examined it, but it would have to do.

The beanie and dead cucumbers were sitting on the vanity, along with the half-used tub of cold cream and a massive quantity of paper towels. He had to admit his subterfuge had been inspired but shuddered a bit at the realization that he had just shared an extremely private part of his personal life with Marinette, whether she understood it or not.

_Glamorous life of a model indeed._

Chat closed his eyes for a moment, regrouping, and braced himself for another round of Camembert he'd snared on his way in as "Adrien." He wasn't entirely sure how much he had kept down, but thought some part of the last round had actually gone a little way toward replenishing his strength. Not as it would have done for Plagg, but enough to keep him standing up and moving forward.

He opened his eyes, grabbed a piece from the vanity where he'd dropped them, and tried to not taste it at all. The resulting retching appeared to be automatic now, and he tried to muffle it by pressing his face into one of his thick towels.

_How do you stand this stuff, Plagg? _he asked.

Fighting back the nausea, he reached for a second slice and repeated the process with the same results. He'd managed to choke down a third when he heard Ladybug tap at the window and drop down into the space.

Chat looked up at her, and pressed a gloved finger to his mouth, then inclined his head toward the walk-in closet. She nodded and followed him inside, trying not to ogle at a space that was five times as large as Marinette's bedroom. He slid the door closed behind them, not quite blocking out the low chatter from the sauna.

"Marinette is safe, and is out in the other room," he said, cocking an ear in that direction. A puzzled expression crossed his face as he added: "She's actually being pretty quiet right now. I think she's more frightened that she let on." He sniffed a bit, confused. "I can't smell her, either…"

"Adrien will keep her calm," Ladybug suggested quickly.

"I don't know about that," Chat said. He might have had cucumbers on his eyes, but he had heard Marinette's heart rate jump at the thought of seeing his exposed skin. "I never realized how deep her feelings for him were – having her stay here might be a bit problematic." He looked meaningfully at Ladybug. "She looks at him like I look at you, milady."

Ladybug shifted a bit uneasily. "I'm sure he will be the perfect gentleman," she snapped.

Chat's eyes widened, almost as if she had slapped his alter ego physically. "Milady, I never intended to imply-" he stopped, eyes widening further. "Wait, you know Adrien, don't you?" he asked, somehow already knowing the answer and starting to make some intuitive conclusions.

"That is not important right now," Ladybug replied hotly. "What _is_ important is what our next steps are. You said Master Fu would be reconnecting with you later today? That gives us some time to do some sleuthing." She looked him over a bit. "Or at least one of us. I'm not convinced you're up for anything heavy duty."

"You want to revisit the scene of the crime?" Chat said thoughtfully. "I think I can cat-trangulate at least one of the locations where the dart was shot," he said. "I had a pretty good view of the last one that had your name on it."

Ladybug noted without comment the bad pun, thinking it was a hopeful sign. "Marinette may have seen something on her balcony," she added.

Chat nodded in agreement. "'I'll pop out and ask her," he said and started for the closet door.

"One second," Ladybug said, placing a hand on his shoulder and turning him slightly. "Look, Chat," she started, "before we get too much further, you need to know something."

He turned back toward her, masked eyebrows betraying surprise. "Milady?"

She tentatively reached up to his face, brushing a stray blonde lock away from his mask. "I don't say it as often as I should, but you are an incredibly important part of my life." Ladybug stared deeply into his eyes, and he wondered if she was reading the desperate hopefulness that was there.

She pulled his face toward her and gently placed a kiss on his lips. Chat went rigid, a thousand emotions exploding in his consciousness. Ladybug released him and stepped back a bit. "I know what I said earlier, and while my true love remains elsewhere, I've recently discovered there's room my heart for you, too."

Chat stared at her. "Ladybug… milady, I can't deny that even hearing _that_ makes my tail kink. But don't lead me to a place you don't want to go. Is there even a remote chance where I'm not the runner up in this contest?" he asked, barely willing to hear her response.

She smiled slyly at him. "Let's just say you've been upgraded to Business Class from Coach."


	9. One Little Mistake

_**Chat Noir**_

Chat remained rooted to his spot, stunned and wondering if he was just suffering some form of delusion as a result of whatever was affecting him. Yet his feline ears (and human ones) seemed to have just heard a tiny crack open in the doorway to Ladybug's heart. He was having a hard time breathing and was certain the entire block could hear the beating of his heart.

For once, he was speechless.

Ladybug seemed to understand his silence. After a moment, she said: "Are you feeling up to an outing, kitty?"

"If we take it easy, yes," he admitted.

"All right," she said. "Meet me at the school after you've had your Chat-chat with Marinette," she said.

"As you wish, milady," Chat said and bowed. He slid open the door and they re-entered the bathroom.

Ladybug motioned to the sauna. "He stays in there much longer and you're going to have to rescue him," she joked quietly.

"I'm not going in there!" he laughed. "You know what steam does to my sense of smell!"

She smiled and leapt through the open window, Chat staring after her retreating form. It was going to take some time for him to process what had just happened.

On his way past the sauna, he did turn off the system – no need to melt the mannequin any more than was necessary – but left the radio playing in the background.

The brighter light from the bathroom spilled into the bedroom as he cracked open the door and slipped through. His eyes automatically adjusted to the gloomy darkness. "Marinette?" he asked quietly.

There was no answer. He scanned the room, and didn't see or hear her, and fought back a minor panic. "Marinette?" he said louder. "Where are you?"

He froze. Footsteps were approaching from the staircase. Chat Noir couldn't be found in Adrien's space.

Chat somersaulted back into the bathroom and quickly re-created Adrien-has-a-migrane, wincing slightly at the sliminess of the dead cucumbers. He'd barely settled back into the bed and pulled the beanie down over his feline ears when the door from the hallway quietly opened and closed.

"Adrien?" Marinette's voice appeared from the side of his bed. "Feeling any better?"

"The sauna helped a bit," he replied, realizing he'd left the radio on. "Chat Noir was looking for you," he added as an afterthought.

"Oh!" she said, surprised. "I'd gone downstairs for a glass of water," she added quickly, though the way she said it didn't ring entirely true to his ears.

"He seemed to think you might have seen something on your balcony when he was hit," Chat continued. "Apparently he and Ladybug are chasing down some leads at the moment, but he'll be back later."

He felt Marinette shift her weight slightly. "I'm not sure what I saw, actually, other than him going down pretty hard." She paused. "Other than the direction, I suppose…" she trailed off.

Chat's ears tried to perk up, a painful experience under the beanie. "You _saw_ where it came from?"

"Maybe I did," she said, thoughtfully.

"That could be helpful," Chat said. "If you think back to-"

"You're right, I've got to tell Ladybug!" she said excitedly. He heard her head back toward the doorway. "Will you be all right for a bit? They were going to start at the school, so I'll head over there and let them know and then come right back." Footsteps retreated and exited his room.

"Marinette – wait!" Chat said, sitting up and inadvertently letting the cucumbers slide off his mask. But his feline ears told him she was already flying down the marble staircase, headed for the door.

Only then did he realize he'd never mentioned _where _Chat was meeting Ladybug.

* * *

_**Ladybug**_

Marinette hurried down the marble staircase and out the massive doors of the mansion, intent on getting over to the school where she was sure Chat was already wondering where she had gotten to. It had been a calculated risk telling Chat to speak with Marinette, one that had not anticipated Adrien stepping in for her partner. Still, it had been more productive than she realized – she had, indeed, seen the direction from which the dart had come. Now they had two leads to follow.

She rounded the gate and crossed the avenue in front of the mansion, ducking into the first alley she found to transform into Ladybug. Moments later she was soaring over the rooftops and toward her school. The late afternoon sunshine was reflecting in the tall windows of the buildings she passed, an amazing sight if she'd had the time to appreciate it.

Ladybug saw Chat's familiar form perched on the rooftop of the school, beside the skylight he'd jumped through earlier. He was scanning the horizon, presumably looking for her. She swung down and around to his side, landing in a partial crouch. "Sorry I'm late, Chat Noir."

"I'm just getting here myself," he replied, and only then did she notice he was trying to conceal how out of breath he was. "I don't seem to go as fast as I used to."

"Did you get anything from Marinette?" she asked.

"Yes," he said to her surprise. "I think we might have a good angle to investigate from the balcony once we get over there."

_But I didn't talk to Chat! How does he know that?_

Flustered, Ladybug blurted: "She told you that?"

"Yes," he said again, though this time a bit more quietly. "Much like Adrien _didn't_ tell Marinette where Ladybug was meeting Chat Noir."

_Oh… wait…_

He turned toward her, wide green eyes searching her face, blonde hair flying at right angles to everything. "How _did_ she know, I wondered? Because she couldn't have, unless _we_ had discussed it earlier."

Chat's eyes softened as he gently placed a hand to her arm. "Then I realized I'd been seeing a pattern for some time, connections where shouldn't have been any. Given the pressure we're under with this maniac running around, both of us made a number of slips today; it just happens you made one last one that suddenly snapped all of the pieces together for me... Marinette."

_This can't be happening. Not now._

And then the penny dropped. "Adrien wasn't in the sauna, was he?"

Chat shook his head slowly. "Sadly, a mannequin was sacrificed for the cause. Nathalie won't be happy." He took her hand in a gloved paw. "We don't have time to process this right now," he said. "But I trust you with my life, and all the secrets that come with it."

She looked at him, emotions swirling. "I… I feel the same way," she said, squeezing his hand and hearing it for the truth it was.

_Adrien is Chat Noir? No wonder I've been so conflicted…_

"We'll come back to this, milady," he said, as he moved in and placed a tender kiss on her cheek. "For I have no intention now of letting you go, no matter your guise." Then he moved away, adding with a wink: "The real question, of course, is whether I've made it to First Class yet." He smiled wider. "Or, as I suspect, I was already there and just didn't realize it."

She stared at him, slack jawed. "You're incorrigible," she managed to say, smothering the smile that suddenly wanted to burst from her face.

"No, I'm cat-triffic. And I'm all yours," he replied as he somersaulted backwards through the skylight.

Ladybug let the smile bloom in full, allowing the impact of what he had said to wash over her.

_I'm never going to let either one of you go either, kitty,_ she promised herself as she followed him down and into the courtyard, landing next to him. The school was empty, the principal having sent everyone home after the akuma attack earlier. They had the space to themselves.

Chat Noir was sniffing the air intently and staring at a section of the roof. For the first time, she recognized just how much of Chat was in Adrien's face - or should that be the other way around, she wondered? No, she realized, the Adrien she had seen daily had really been nothing more than a mask, something Chat had been hiding behind all this time. Elements had always been there, of course: the kindness, the do-anything-for-anyone attitude, the empathy, the intelligence. Being Chat had just allowed more of his actual personality into the open, infecting it with just a tinge of roguishness that Adrien would never have been able to display.

"That wasn't really cold cream, was it?" she asked suddenly.

"It was," he replied without missing a beat. "And before you ask, no, I don't do that every night. I do have to remove the makeup we use at photo shoots, though, so that's why I had some on hand – just for the record," he added, a tinge of red creeping up his cheeks.

She followed his gaze and tried to see what he was looking at. "Well, you had me fooled," she said. "Pretty clever under the circumstances."

"Not just another purrfect face, milady," he smiled. "If I am right, it came from there," he pointed.

His claw tip indicated a tiny clerestory window along the forward edge of the building, barely two feet high by maybe six wide. Ladybug frowned. "Are you sure?"

"The trajectory fits," he said. "Remember who's getting an 'A' in geometry," he added with some classic Chat snark.

She punched him. "Incorrigible _and_ insufferable."

He traced a path through the air from the window to where he'd tackled her on the upper landing. "It's the only logical place, unless they were inside the space. I didn't see anything then, but that doesn't mean there wasn't someone – or something – hiding up there."

"Let's take a closer look." Ladybug grabbed Chat around the waist.

"Me-ow," he said playfully. "I could get used to this."

"Insufferable," she muttered again as she tossed the yo-yo up and back through the skylight, reeling them up to the roof once more. Together they jogged to the outside of the clerestory window, where they found the glass had been carefully removed and placed to once side of the frame.

"I think they call that a 'clue,'" Chat said, kneeling down to examine the frame. "I don't see any prints on the glass, and it's a clean cut along the edges. It's like something you see in the movies," he added. "Like when the bank robbers have that laser cutter—" He looked up. "Ladybug?"

She was looking at the sky, thoughtfully. "If you extended the trajectory further, would it intersect with that building over there?" She pointed to a rather modern high-rise a few blocks away from the school.

Chat adjusted his position. "Maybe," he said. "It might intersect with the top floor, or the one just below that." He turned back to Ladybug. "But that's at least a half mile away – it would've been a one in a thousand shot from there! With no chance of knowing just _when _either one of us would be in the line of sight!"

"Under normal circumstances, I'd agree," she said. "But it might mean that more than one person – or thing – is involved. Or an enhanced super villain ability we've never seen before."

Chat nodded. "A spotter here, the shooter there." He looked up at the high-rise again. "That's not the tallest building in Paris," he said, "but I have a feeling it might also have a line of sight to your bakery." He grimaced, gripping his midsection.

Ladybug started toward him, but he waved her off. "It's the cheese," he explained. "I've been downing Camembert sliders all day to try and keep up some strength, but it's a bit hard on the stomach." He started to retch again, and had barely turned away from her before vomiting his last snack.

She approached him then, carefully placed a hand on his back. "I hear you should eat more greenery to prevent hairballs," she said, knowing he'd be embarrassed and trying to lighten the mood.

"Not funny, milady," he croaked as he wiped his face on his sleeve. "Ow!" he said suddenly, then, more seriously, "that's new."

"What?" she asked.

He turned, and blood was trickling down his lip. "I seem to have bit myself," he said, smiling – which quickly faded when he saw her look. "What?"

"You… you have… whiskers…"

* * *

**AN: Thank you for the positive comments! **

**This was an interesting section to write as my original intent was to stay inside the confines of the canon box I had created with the first chapter. Clearly I am now starting down a Quantum Thread that looks and feels a bit like the main timeline but has started to diverge a bit. Don't worry, I'll snap them all back together in the end... or will I? Stay tuned.**


	10. Elementary, My Dear Chat

_**Chat Noir**_

Chat pressed his gloved hand against his face and sure enough, a set of whiskers had erupted around his masked nose, three to a side, just below his eyes. What was stranger was that he could feel each one individually, though he wasn't entirely sure he understood the new sensations - yet. What he did understand was that it meant he was in more trouble than he thought. "Ladybug, I don't think this is good."

"Open your mouth," she said, placing her hand on his chin.

Obediently he did so, and she gasped. "What?"

"No wonder you nicked your lip," she said. "Your canines have grown into full fangs."

He pulled out his baton and used the camera function to see his face. "Whoa," he said. "My dentist is definitely not going to like this." He paused. "Or father. There goes the modelling work."

Ladybug tilted her head. "It's been, what, about ten hours since you were hit the first time? And three since the second hit?"

"Maybe," he replied, looking at the sun hanging low in the sky. "I've not actually been keeping track of the time, but that felines right."

She rolled her eyes. "I don't have enough information, but I think perhaps your taking a second dose of whatever was in that dart went beyond simply removing your ability to transform. It's just a guess, but I'd be willing to bet what little of the second dose you did receive has started to physically combine you with your kwami. Hence, you're taking on more and more feline characteristics."

Chat's eyes crinkled into a smile. "You should really say 'ergo,' Sherlock," he laughed.

"Glad you know your place, Dr. Watson," she quipped.

"Hey!" he exclaimed. "I thought we went through that already… I'm so much _more_ than a sidekick!" He tried to stifle another set of retching and had to turn away from her again. "Sorry…" he said between convulsions. "This seems a bit worse than earlier…"

Ladybug held the back of his head as he gasped a bit. At length he turned back around and leaned his face against the cool metalwork of the roof. "What time is it?" he asked. "I'm supposed to meet Master Fu back at my place at sunset."

"We've got about an hour, give or take," she replied. "Are you strong enough to hit that building, or do want me to take you home?"

Chat bristled slightly. "I'm fine," he said, pushing himself up. "But since I'm being chivalrous, I'll let you get us over there…"

"Right," she laughed as she wrapped an arm around his waist once more. This time he leaned into her fully, and she took off toward the high-rise. Effortlessly she sailed through the sky, and the two landed easily on the wide rooftop of the building in question. It was modern enough to include stairway access on opposite sides of the roof, an elevator aperture, and a helipad ringed with warning beacons flashing slowly.

"This has to have been designed by an American," Chat said.

"What makes you say that?"

"It doesn't have any flair at all. It's, like, generic building 101."

She smiled and didn't disagree. "Can you see the bakery from here?"

Chat started to walk the perimeter of the rooftop, easily zeroing in on the correct angle that should have pointed toward her family's bakery. "Yes," he said at length. "And from about here, you can see both the school and your balcony with a minimum shift in stance. Maybe forty degrees, tops."

Ladybug spun in a slow circle. Almost all of the main areas of the city she and Chat Noir moved through were visible from this building. Not the entire city, of course, but the majority of the places the two of them were more likely to be sighted. It also included the homes of just about all of their schoolmates.

"I'd have to use the map software on my computer, but I feel like this might be in the middle of the largest cluster of where the two of us have been called to action." She pointed toward the school. "With that being one of the largest concentrations of events."

"So someone has clearly charted out our pattern," Chat mused, "and then set up shop in a location that would statistically give them a better than average chance at taking us down." He looked at her. "That's not Hawkmoth's style."

"Not unless he's moved to a new level. But no, this doesn't feel like him. He might be behind it, ultimately, but this isn't standard SOP for him."

"I –" Chat grimaced and bent over, his face wreathed in pain. "Wow," he said tightly. "I think we need to get back to Master Fu…"

* * *

_**Ladybug**_

Chat dropped to his knees in front of her, almost keening with pain. It had been a mistake to let him come with her, not that she could have stopped him. She bent down next him and placed a hand on his back, and was surprised to feel how tense his entire body had become.

_Wait… is that… fur?_

She looked more closely, and sure enough, tendrils of black fur had started to sprout across Chat's suit. They were very fine, but given enough time, would definitely cover him in a luxurious dark coat. She turned his face up, and determined that his exposed skin was not changing – only the parts covered by his costume.

_Interesting. Does that support my theory?_ she wondered.

"C'mon Chat, let's get you home." She gripped him around the waist once more and lifted them into the sky, soaring back across the skyline and toward the Agreste mansion. The bathroom window was still open (how did no one ever notice that, she wondered) and she deftly slid through, landing carefully on the bathroom tile.

Chat curled up into a tiny ball on the tile. "I think I'm going to stay right here, milady," he said with conviction. "Besides, Chat Noir can't be in Adrien's bed." He cocked one eye up at her. "And I am not putting on that hideous cold cream one more time today."

Ladybug looked at him sternly. "Adrien is supposed to be in there, and Marinette is supposed to be with him." Her eyes flicked to the counter and the half-lidded container.

"Seriously?" he nearly mewled it out.

A few minutes later, a grumbling Chat Noir was ensconced once more in Adrien's bed, wearing a layer of cold cream and sporting the beanie to hide his ears. Ladybug's only concession was to keep the wilted cucumbers close at hand and add them at the last minute if an unexpected visitor appeared. After he was settled in, she ducked into the bathroom and exited the house only to re-enter once more via the front door as Marinette.

"Adrien, I'm back," she called out as she re-entered the bedroom in civilian form.

"Over here, Marinette," he said grumpily.

She skittered to his side. "You've got to keep up appearances, Chat," she whispered.

"You're not the one wearing this hideous stuff," he grumbled.

"Move over, kitty," she said as she sat down on the side of his bed.

He slid over to make space, but then quickly ensnared her with one arm and pulled her dangerously close to his face. "Hey!" she squeaked.

"It's good for your complexion," Chat laughed, before playfully bopping her on the nose with his finger. He sobered quickly, releasing her: "We have time before Master Fu gets here," he said. "I need to tell you something."

Marinette settled in next to him. "Go on."

Chat – or was it Adrien? – took a deep breath. "If I don't get through this, I need you to know one thing."

She tried and failed not to laugh. He placed a finger on her lips. "I'm trying to be serious here, milady."

"I know," she chuckled. "I'm sorry… it's the cold cream…"

He glared at her but pressed forward. "Marinette, I was a fool not to see the Ladybug in you, or you in Ladybug. I am so terribly sorry at all of the lost time." He hugged her close, this time careful to keep her well away from the cream. "You are my entire world. My beginning, my middle, my end."

Chat turned her head so he could stare into her eyes. "If I don't get through this," he repeated, "know that these last few hours that we've had together have been the most joyous of my life." He paused. "I'd have preferred to have not been shot at before finding out who the love of my life was, but I guess that's a small price to pay for happiness."

He hugged her again. "I hope you feel the same," he continued. "But I can understand if you don't. As Chat Noir, I was so hung up on getting Ladybug to acknowledge me I never realized what Adrien was doing to you."

He smiled again. "I talk as if we are two different people, but really, we're not. I can't be Chat Noir without Adrien; one cannot exist without the other." He smoothed out one of her ribbons with a tender motion from a clawed finger. "Does that make any sense at all?"

"Yes," she said. "I have the same duality that is really a unity," she added. "I thought it was Adrien I wanted to be with as badly as life itself; what I've realized is the 'two' of you, like the 'two' of me, are really just different takes on the same soul." She reached up to his hand, still on the ribbon. "It's not entirely true that you can't be both. Everything that we are, deep down, is there. 'They' are still you."

"That's deep, milady."

"It is," she replied. "It came to me some time ago that the two of us didn't accidentally come together. True, we were chosen to be the protectors of this city, but I think there might be a more cosmic angle to it than that." She took his hand down and kissed the palm.

"Does that mean we can officially be a couple? _Finally?_"

Marinette smiled a bit wider. "It depends – which couple is a couple?"

"Perhaps someone should fill me in," Master Fu said as he stepped around the corner.


	11. Decisions and Consequences

_**Chat Noir**_

"Uh," Chat said, eyes wide. He turned to Marinette, who was similarly aghast. They'd not discussed how they were going to handle this particular situation. "I'm not sure where to begin."

"Let's cut to the chase, then," Master Fu said. "Clearly you've both broken the one protocol I _emphasized_ should never be broken."

"Yes," Chat confirmed, downcast. "It wasn't intentional, Master. But both of us made one too many mistakes in front of the other today." He looked up. "This is completely on me. I should never have leaned on Marinette the way I did; this would never have happened if I'd just let it go."

To his surprise, Master Fu smiled slightly. "My children, I never expected you to keep secrets from each other forever. I'd just hoped it would take a bit longer for the two of you to figure it out on your own." He put his satchel on the end of the bed and continued. "But the two of you are too smart for your own good; I could see that from the beginning, and knew it was just a matter of time."

"So, you're not mad?" Chat tried to look as contrite as possible.

"I'm furious, but we have larger issues to deal with at the moment."

Chat let out the breath he was holding, instinctively understanding he'd crossed a line with the Master that would take a long time to repair. "Of course, Master Fu," he said simply.

The Keeper of the Miraculous leaned a hip on the edge of the bed. "Marinette was correct in her assessment of the situation. You are currently under what I believe is known as the _t__ransformaton entropique_ – the so-called 'Entropic Transformation' - magic so old, it predates even that of the Miraculous Jewels."

"Entropic?" Chat looked between Marinette and Master Fu. "The transformation part I get," he said, indicating the whiskers with one hand, "but I think I'm missing the context on the first part."

Marinette smirked. "Someone wasn't paying attention in science class," she chided. "But I've only heard that term in relation to the Laws of Thermodynamics. To be honest, I never thought much about the intersection of science and magic."

Master Fu nodded. "The two are not all that separate," he said. "In this case, we're concerned about the Second Law. What do you remember about that?"

Chat spoke up: "Closed systems never change, essentially," he said, winking at Marinette.

"Very good, Adrien," Master Fu said. "Intuitively, you already understand, then, that the bond between you and your kwami is a 'closed state' - until you use Cataclysm."

"That changes the overall equation," Chat nodded in agreement, "discharging the ring and forcing me to revert."

Fu produced a medieval looking book from his satchel. It was a massive, leather bound item rimmed with gold flakes and a script that Chat didn't recognize. Fu set it on the bed and flipped to a page he had bookmarked, turning it to face the duo. "This is a text from the eighth century B.C.," he explained, pointing to the rather extraordinary illustration.

It depicted a quasi-human form leaning away from a cloaked figure; it wasn't lost on Chat that the non-cloaked being looked a lot like someone who was using the Miraculous Cat jewel, although he happened to think _his_ ears were a bit better designed.

"According to this text, there was a period of time when humanity didn't trust the Miraculous Holders. A small scholarly sect in Mesopotamia created an alchemical brew that, if used against a transformed Miraculous, would both deplete their energy and forever trap them in their transformation, powerless to prevent the removal of their jewel."

_Whoa._

"They also created an army of ephemeral beings they called 'marcheurs Miraculeux' - commonly referred to as the Miraculous Walkers - that could be called upon to descend upon an identified Miraculous holder and render them harmless." He pointed to the cloaked figure. "That, I think, is what is currently hunting you. Although I am not yet certain what triggered it."

Master Fu looked from one to the other, his eyes communicating the gravity of the situation to the teenagers. "Fortunately, our order was able to prevent this from being used more than a few times; in those cases when it was used, we ultimately recovered the Miraculouses in question."

"And repaired them?" This was from Marinette.

Fu turned toward her, frowning. "I can only interpret what I've been able to find as a lukewarm 'maybe.'" He pulled a second book of his satchel, a bit more modern than the first, and keyed it to another bookmarked page. "This story is from Africa in the late sixteen-hundreds. A predecessor in my position had an entry in his diary denoting the steps he'd taken to 're-energize a depleted jewel,' and while he lays out the ingredients used, I've not been able to create the right compounding as yet, nor does he actually describe _how _the process of recharging is to be done. Rub it on the jewel? Drink it? Run around on a pogo stick? I have no earthly idea, and no one to ask."

Master Fu rubbed his eyes and suddenly looked very tired. "I also don't know if any of what I've discovered applies to you, Adrien. You've been double-dosed; that could mean anything from needing twice the antidote to the real possibility that nothing will slow – or stop – it's effects."

Chat's eyes widened and ears flattened. "Wait, are you saying what I _think_ you are saying? Am I actually turning into a cat? For _real_?"

He pondered that for a moment. Chat had been, well, a cat for almost a year now; he knew he'd been taking on more and more feline aspects as he'd grown more comfortable with the role, but had never considered them more than character affectations that would play well to Ladybug and the wider public. The chance that he might actually have always had more feline in him as part of the Miraculous deal – and that it could completely subsume who he thought he was – was not a comfortable thought. Despite his earlier conversation with Marinette, what had been happening to him had felt more abstract; the possibility it could be irreversible hadn't been contemplatable.

With a cold, hard certainty, it was now crystal clear.

Master Fu nodded. "It's the only explanation, given your symptoms and what I've discovered. And at the rate you're going, I suspect you have, at most, another day before any trace of you – the _human _part, that is – is lost and irretrievable."

He looked up at the two super heroes, somber, and withdrew a small corked bottle from his bag. It glowed a brilliant yellow color, although as he watched, Chat thought he saw it shift to green and then back to yellow. "I think this will slow things down for a bit," he said, handing the vial to Chat. "If we are really lucky, it might undo a little of the effects of the Entropic Transformation, but not entirely."

Chat rolled the vial in his hands. It was warm to the touch and seemed to be responding to his movements in a very unsettling way. "This won't recharge the ring, will it?"

Fu shook his head and shrugged at the same time. "No. Maybe."

_That's reassuring. _

Noir looked to Marinette. "What do you think, milady?"

She was chewing her lip the way she always did when she wasn't one-hundred percent sure how to respond. Her blue eyes were deeply troubled, and worry lines seemed to have become permanent around them.

At length, she said: "If this at the very least slows down the progression of the spell, it's worth it. I need you out there with me tracking down whoever is using this against us." She reached over and flicked a lock of his hair back so she could see his eyes clearly. "I _need _you, Chat."

Chat looked at the vial again. Drink it and hope for the best? He turned back to Marinette, wanting to say a thousand things to her and unable to utter even one. But the look of support he saw in her eyes muted the worst of the fears that were threatening to overtake him.

"Anything for you, milady," he said, though none of his usual playfulness enthused the words.

_No, _he thought. _I _am_ terrified. Terrified at losing all of this._

He uncorked the vial and tossed it back in one gulp before he lost his nerve, shuddering as it seared its way into his gullet. Within seconds a warmth blossomed out from his stomach, far worse than anything the Camembert had done to him. Stars bloomed in his vision, knocking out his night vision, and the blood started to rush through his ears, drowning out anything Master Fu or Marinette might have been saying to him. Chat's heart felt like it was throwing itself against his ribcage in an attempt to free itself from imprisonment. Then it suddenly stopped – and he felt that, too, oddly.

"Oh," he said, sliding down the headboard of his bed. "That's some awful stuff..."


	12. In, Through & Beyond

_**Marinette**_

She watched helplessly as Chat downed the iridescent vial, feeling powerless to do anything. Hearing Master Fu put voice behind her fears – and, likely Chat's as well – had not helped assuage any guilt at her inability to make the situation any better.

Chat started to say something and then his eyes rolled backwards, his body sliding sideways down his headboard. Marinette was closer and immediately checked for a pulse, and finding none, snapped around to Master Fu. "His heart! It's stopped beating!"

Fu's eyes widened. "Is he breathing?"

She leaned in. "No!"

Without waiting, she hopped off the bed and pulled Chat to the edge, wiped away as much cold cream as she could and opened up his airway. Fortunately, they'd gone over the new CPR procedure at a school assembly earlier that term, and she quickly stepped through the checklist.

_Airway open... check._

_Position victim properly... check._

_Find sternum... check._

She set herself up at the side of the bed, connected her hands and started plunging them into Chat's sternum. Something cracked under her hands as she rhythmically started compressing, and she ignored it, trying to keep her pace consistent.

"C'mon, Chat!" she hissed between her teeth.

_Ten... eleven... twelve..._

She heard Master Fu digging through his satchel, mumbling something as he did so. Time slowed down for her, pain beginning to manifest in her shoulders at the awkward position.

_Thirty... thirty-one... thirty-two... Breath! You've got to BREATH...!_

* * *

_**Chat Noir**_

Though time seemed to have no meaning, he thought he could hear someone counting. But the more he strained to hear it, the quieter it seemed to get. It worried him, but not enough to think too much about it.

_Ten… eleven… twelve…_

He opened his eyes and found himself in a wide, empty field of waist-high grass. The sun was bright, and the air seemed infused with some sort of floral perfume. Thickly sweet, almost like smelling liquid honey, it was just about too much to absorb, yet his lungs couldn't seem to get enough of it. He felt an overwhelming sense of calm, peace descending on him as though it were a warm, gentle blanket.

Turning, he saw the field inclined in one direction and sloped gently away in the opposite. The horizon was far enough away that it was impossible to see any details; just one endless, massive field on a late summer's afternoon. That left him with four options, essentially: along the middle axis, upward or down. Metaphysics notwithstanding, he couldn't immediately see a difference in going in any direction, although the more he stared, he thought _perhaps _light was stronger in one than the other.

_That's trite,_ he thought. _Follow the light, indeed?_

Only then did he realize he was Chat Noir – he held out his hands, saw the claw-tipped gloves; pressed a hand to his collar and felt the bell; ran a hand through his hair and determined the feline ears were intact and in place. Even his baton was snugly set in the small of his back, though when he flipped it into phone mode it was unable to make a connection to anything. Apparently there was poor cell reception in the afterlife.

The camera function did work, and he reversed it to confirm that the whiskers were no longer there; running a finger along the edge of his arm confirmed the fur that had appeared earlier was gone. A thought occurred to him, he braced himself, and then rotated his ring hand.

The paw print was glowing, albeit with just the center print left.

_Thirty… thirty one… thirty two…_

That presented a conundrum. Assuming he was dead (and he had no reason not to think that), was he just visualizing he'd regained the ability to transform? Should he worry about how the ring had discharged? And if he was dead, what did that mean for Plagg? And for that matter, why did he even conjure up a working baton?

_What sort of afterlife was this, anyway?_

Then again, if he was dead, did it matter if he transformed? What did he have to lose? He closed his eyes, took a deep breath (odd that he still needed to breath, given that he was dead), and paused for one last second.

"Plagg! Claws in!"

Whatever kind of purgatory he was in appeared to conform to the same rules as where he had come from; the Miraculous effect surrounded him, and in short order he was once more Adrien, with an exhausted Plagg fluttering away from his ring to rest on the ground beside his sneaker.

He bent down and retrieved the kwami, who he was overjoyed to see still breathing. "Sorry, Plagg," Adrien said. "This is all my fault!"

"Please tell me you have cheese," the kwami of destruction said weakly.

Adrien felt his pockets, wondering if he indeed still had anything on hand. He was surprised to find a slice, which he helped Plagg eat. Of course, if this was his afterlife, he supposed he could whip up just about anything he pleased. In response, two more pieces of cheese appeared in his palm, which he tossed to Plagg.

_Forty... forty-one... forty-two..._

With no particular destination in mind, Adrien started across the field along what he thought might be the exact midpoint between the hill and the valley. He wasn't yet willing to make a decision. "Where do you think we are, Plagg?" he asked as they picked their way across the field. The horizon didn't seem to get any closer as they walked, and when he turned backward, the distance didn't seem to be changing there, either. He might as well have been on a stationary treadmill. Yet he kept on moving in what his senses told him was "forward."

"Here and there," the kwami said cryptically. "But you are in danger of staying 'here' and not returning to 'there.'"

"So I am dead, then."

"Not yet," Plagg replied. "Stay here much longer, though, and you will be. But you can't stay, not yet, and you _know_ that."

_Sixty-two... sixty-three... sixty-four..._

"Yeah," Adrien said, stopping his forward progress. "It's not time, is it?"

"Not by a long shot." Plagg looked as though Adrien had finally made a right decision. "Besides, the cheese out 'there' is better than whatever it was you just fed me."

"My afterlife, my cheese," Adrien laughed, then suddenly asked: "You know who Ladybug really is, don't you?"

He had no idea why he asked it, given what was happening to him, but it oddly also seemed like the just right time to find out.

_This is a weird place. _

The kwami had the good sense to look nonplussed. "A gentleman never kisses and tells," he said. "Now, can we get this show on the road?"

"Sure." Adrien paused, looking at the field once more and wondering if he'd be back here again soon.

He hoped not.

"Plagg - claws out!"

The green glow faded, and he was back in form as Chat Noir, and feeling more like himself than he had in a long time. He flipped up his ring, saw it was fully charged, and smiled. He knew exactly how to get out.

"Cataclysm!" he cried, and was rewarded with the sensation of immense power rushing to his hand. Without a second thought, he leaned down and swiped his fingertips along the edges of the waist high grass, and felt himself begin to gently tumble through space…

* * *

_**Marinette**_

Her arms were cramping and she wasn't sure how long she'd been at it. Two minutes? Three? She'd lost count somewhere around one hundred and was pretty certain that she was close to the upper limit for how long Adrien/Chat Noir could go without air.

_Just a little bit longer_, she told herself. _Keep going. Keep going. He'll be back._

And just like that, a glow formed around Chat Noir; she felt hands pulling her back and away from the bed. Together, she and Master Fu watched in amazement as the Miraculous effect enveloped him from head to toe; when the green light faded, they found Chat Noir still lying there, but breathing on his own.

Marinette pressed a finger to his carotid. "Pulse is normal," she said. Then her eyes went to his face. "Whiskers are gone!" she exclaimed, and quickly ran her hand over the fabric of the costume. "So's the fur. Did it actually work?"

Master Fu picked up Chat's ring hand. "Better than I expected," he said, as he rotated it toward Marinette. She could clearly see the entire paw print illuminated – the ring had been completely recharged and showed no sign of starting to count down.

"Chat?" Marinette asked anxiously, shaking her partner gently. "Chat?"

"Ooooh," he moaned, eyes flickering. "My chest feels like an elephant is sitting on top of it," he said tightly. "Were you using it as a trampoline?" Chat started to cough and thought better of it.

Marinette turned toward Master Fu. "Ladybug can fix this, right?"

"It should repair his broken ribs, yes." His eyes darted to the door. "Quickly, my dear."

"Tikki – spots on!"

Marinette sped through her transformation, skipped over her Lucky Charm and immediately invoked her Miraculous Ladybug. The room was filled with her brilliant little helpers as they swarmed over Chat Noir; when the light faded, Ladybug went to his side and helped to prop him back up.

"Milady," he said tiredly. "I can't tell you how happy I am to see you."

She threw herself into his embrace, barely able to hold back her tears.

"Ow!" he said, not unkindly. "Careful, milady. I'm still a bit sore around the middle."

"Ladybug, someone is coming." Master Fu was focused on the door.

"Can he transform?" she asked.

"Only one way to find out," Chat Noir said. "Master Fu, can you get out through the bathroom?"

"Don't worry about me, child," Fu said. "Hurry!"

"Plagg, claws in!"

Marinette followed suit. "Tikki - spots off!"

Two flashes, one green, one red, enveloped the room. When it faded, Marinette found herself looking at Adrien, who in turn was staring at her like he was seeing her for the first time. Plagg was hovering close by, but quickly ducked below the bed as a knock came at the door.

"Yes?" Adrien said as Marinette hurriedly let Tikki into her handbag. He frowned as Marinette frantically pointed to his button down top before realizing what she was trying to tell him.

"Are you ok? What's going on?"

Adrien's eyes widened at the voice of his father. "Uh, everything's fine," he said.

The door opened and the tall form of the fashion designer appeared at the corner of his bed. Gabriel Agreste's keen eyes acknowledged the presence of Marinette, who was demurely leaning against the couch in the forward area of the space, clutching her bookbag. "Miss Dupain-Cheng," came the distinctive voice, "good to see you again."

"Mister Agreste," she replied easily. "Nathalie let me in earlier. Since Adrien was not in class today, I volunteered to share my notes for him." She held up her bookbag, noting as she did so that Master Fu had managed to escape unnoticed. "We've got a nasty midterm next week, so even one day out of synch could be problematic."

"That was very kind of you." Gabriel turned back toward Adrien, and that was when Marinette realized Adrien had somehow managed to don his pajama top while Gabriel had been talking to her. Hopefully Gabriel didn't see the telltale outline of his sneakers beneath the sheet Adrien had pulled up to his chest. "Are you feeling well enough for dinner?"

Adrien's eyes widened at the prospect that he might eat with his father. "Yes! Much-"

"Good, I'll have Chef send it up." Gabriel nodded to Marinette. "You are, of course, welcome to stay for dinner as well. Have a pleasant evening," he finished as he exited the room.

Marinette looked back and saw how crestfallen Adrien was and went to his side once more. "I'll stay," she said, "unless you don't want to share."

He grabbed her into a warm embrace. "I've waited a long time to do just that," he said happily.


	13. Frogzilla

_**Adrien**_

It wasn't the first time he'd shared a meal with Marinette, but it _was _the first time they had done it as a couple. He smiled at that: they were just that, and he was having no trouble adjusting to the situation.

Over exquisitely prepared chicken curry, they discussed what had happened to him, with Plagg contributing his version here and there, creating a fuller picture of the experience they appeared to have shared. Wherever they had been – another realm, purgatory, an alternate universe – what had taken place in that space had affected both and left them with indelible memories. Whether it was real or not was up for debate, but neither Adrien or his kwami could deny that they had _felt _every moment of the experience.

"As odd as it sounds, the transformation took place," Adrien told Marinette. "And I'm just as certain that Plagg really did recharge on that bit of Camembert I fed him." He paused again. "I can't explain it, but I knew I was hanging between returning and not. And whether I imagined him or not, Plagg convinced me it wasn't time to go."

Plagg smacked the back of Adrien's head. "I was there, and I _did _say that."

"Maybe it wasn't purgatory, exactly," Marinette said thoughtfully around a mouthful of bread. "It's just as likely you were in an environment created by the Entropic Transformation. However you managed to do it, using Cataclysm inside that bubble, so to speak, helped to break its overall effect."

"A one-two punch," he added. "That horrific concoction Master Fu made me drink helped set it up. I hope he took good notes on how he came up with it."

"Yeah," Marinette replied. "And we need to consider the real possibility that one or both of us could wind up under its influence again. Until we can find the person behind it, we're going to be targets."

Adrien pulled out the round tin of special Camembert that he carried, the one with the "special" transformations they recently discovered they had the ability to use. So far, they had only experimented with the ice and aqua versions, but there were multiple other colors yet to be tried. "Is it too much to hope that we have something in here that might protect us? A magical version of Carapace's shell we can don as needed, for example?" He looked pointedly at Marinette, knowing full well she was aware of who was under that mask, too.

Marinette ignored him and instead opened her purse and brought out her special box of color-coded macaroons. "I don't know," she said honestly. "None of these do that, according to Master Fu, but that doesn't mean there aren't more options in the Grimoire." She looked up at him. "I suggest we drop in for a visit, if you are up for it."

Adrien smiled, almost giddily. "You're finally going to take me to him?"

"Yes."

He flicked his eyes to his phone, which was sitting on the coffee table next to the serving platter. "The evening is still young, milady," he fairly purred.

"Thank you for the dinner, Adrien," Marinette said formally as she stood up from the couch.

"And thank you for the notes," he said, similarly standing, then, as he leaned close: "Meet you at our spot, LB?"

"Yes," she replied, placing a finger on his nose. "Don't keep a girl waiting."

"Never, milady."

He watched as she gathered her belongings and left his room. So much had changed for them over the past day, it was getting hard for him to accurately quantify his emotions. But one thing was for sure: she had always been the girl of his dreams.

Adrien smiled, waited another minute, and then called out to Plagg: "Ready to try this again?"

Plagg looked unenthusiastic at best, but downed one last piece of cheese and nodded.

"Plagg - claws out!"

* * *

_**Chat Noir**_

Perhaps the fact that he'd not been able to transform for almost two days made him more aware of the experience than normal. To be honest, he'd been slipping in and out of character almost on automatic for months now, and had forgotten to savor the process. For now, it had taken on a whole new level of meaning for him – what it represented to him, as a person, and what he could and should do with his abilities. As the green glow enveloped him and the Chat Noir costume slowly took over his form, he made a promise to himself to truly appreciate the chance he'd been given to make a difference.

Once the glow faded, he found himself once more behind the mask. He felt better than he had in a long time, though his quick leap toward the bathroom and his escape reminded him that the ribs were still just a bit sore; his quick-healing would correct that soon enough, but he'd be tender for a few more hours. He again caught himself in the bathroom mirror, though this time, he decided the bell should stay once and for all.

Only then did he notice the intercom was still active, the little red light mocking him.

_How long has that been on?_

The last time he'd used it was when he'd told Nathalie to allow Marinette in. His eyes widened. Chat Noir and Ladybug had chatted not more than a few feet away from that microphone; had someone heard it? He used a claw tip to deactivate the system while musing on the ramifications. Chat wasn't sure if he completely trusted Nathalie, despite the obvious loyalty she seemed to have to his father. Then again, it wasn't like she didn't already keep tabs on Adrien's every move. Still, Ladybug would have to know about it.

He launched himself out the bedroom widow and into the night air, deciding to helicopter with his baton for a bit. Despite having fought off two waves of akumatized villains in three days, and despite his near-death experience, he was feeling more exuberant than he probably had any right to. It was especially nice to be back to his normal, enhanced senses instead of what had become an overwhelming cavalcade of sensations.

_Those whiskers really itched, too._

Chat deftly dropped out of his helicopter atop a building and started to run across the spine of the rooftop, his pace easy. The sky was not as clear as the prior evening, with a smattering of clouds reflecting back the glow of the City of Lights. He could never tire of the views he was privileged to see as he worked the city as a super hero; there was something special in knowing it was something he shared with Ladybug. He smiled at that thought and approached the edge of the building, prepping for a leap across the street to the next building by coiling up to spring once more into the night.

As he launched off the building, something tugged at his ankle and he found his arc drastically altered: he was no longer headed upward, but down and directly into the side of the building. His momentum drove him upside down and face first into the brick façade; he felt the plaster crack around him as he tried to puzzle out what happened.

He pulled back, ignoring the blood rushing to his head, and used his claws to rotate around and face whatever had snagged in. While he looked, he pulled out the baton and triggered the phone.

It connected briefly, but the signal in his current orientation was weak enough the call terminated before Ladybug was able to answer.

_Well, this is lovely_, he thought as he snapped the phone shut, but kept the baton close at hand. Chat still couldn't see what had caught his leg; he took a closer look at his ankle, and though it wasn't broken, the fabric around it was reflecting the light differently than normal. Carefully, he reached down and touched it with a finger. Whatever it was, it had a little stick to it. Not as much as that nasty web he'd gotten caught up in with Anansi (that had been straight out of a horror movie), but enough to make him nervous.

He dropped to a ledge that was just below the indentation he'd made in the side of the building and crouched, still searching. An ear swiveled a fraction of second before something nasty caught him right on his sore ribs and yanked him off the ledge and toward the street; it took all of his focus to keep a grip on the baton, especially when he saw the giant frog-like critter that was reeling him in.

Quickly he braced for the inevitable, placing his baton perpendicular and trying to get into a better crouch. The tongue (it had to be, he thought, shuddering) relentlessly rolled back into the gaping mouth of the creature, carrying him along for the ride.

_This is going to be gross. On the plus side, it'll wipe all of my other nightmares off the map. _

He felt and heard the jaws snap shut around him. It took a moment longer than he'd hoped to trigger the baton's extension, but slowly, it started to press against the roof and base of the mouth. The tongue tried to sneak around his body and dislodge the baton, but Chat only curled himself more closely around the device that was likely preventing him from becoming a cat-a-tizer. Slowly, much too slowly, he started to see a gap form around the edges of the space; the tongue changed tactics and wrapped itself around him, and began to squeeze.

He tried to hold his muscles taut against the onslaught, but he could feel the air being compressed out of his lungs. The baton was bowing under the strain, but continued to expand; the gap was nearly wide enough for him to get a leg out to the street. Chat tried to reset his position to make use of the gap, and was rewarded by an extra squeeze that pressed his last breath out in a surprised whoosh.

_Huh. I wonder if this version of the afterlife will be the same? _he thought as blackness crept into his vision.

With a _spring! _noise, the baton made a final effort and snapped the jaws wide open; clearly it was painful, as the tongue released him and tried again for the baton. Chat took a deep, shuddering breath, grabbed the baton and leapt out to the street, rolled to the side and scampered down a dark alley as fast as his feline legs could take him. The plodding behind him told him the amphibian thing was following, and making a reasonable attempt to keep up with him, too.

He sprung off the cobblestone and used his claws to dig into the side of the building, leaping sideways almost immediately to avoid another collision with the too-gross-for-words tongue. He'd misjudged the distance, though, and found himself sliding along a small ledge, his claws carving deep grooves into the stonework. Chat managed to keep himself from going over the edge, but the cost was another narrowly avoided miss from the lizard.

_I can't keep this up_, he thought. Then: _up!_

Chat flipped into a stand and leapt into the air, helicoptering into the sky. He nearly made the rooftop and relative safety when a lucky shot snared his leg again and yanked him backwards. He flung his arms out and gouged his claws into the building he was falling past, arresting his descent but losing his baton in the process. He watched it tumble toward the street and away from any practical use.

_Arrrgh!_ He yelled to himself as he clung to the side of safety. Whatever it was still had him by the leg, but he had managed to anchor himself enough, and at such a high angle, it was having trouble getting him off the building.

_That'll only last as long as I can hold on here, _he realized as he felt a cramp starting along one bicep. Fruitlessly he looked at his baton; he'd have to hope that Ladybug would start to wonder why he was late and flip into tracking mode to see where he'd gotten to. Since he was notoriously early for their meetups, there was a chance she'd already started toward him. It was enough of a hopeful thought that he redoubled his efforts and pressed himself flat into the cool marble of the building.

"You are really starting to annoy me," Chat hissed as it continued to yank on his leg. "And what is it with Hawkmoth? Can't he _just once_ create an _ordinary _supervillain instead of some oddball mashup of cliched science fiction monsters!" he howled as he tried to use one foot to dislodge the unwanted embrace from his other leg.

Instead, it managed to wrap itself around _both _legs and started pulling on him with renewed purchase. He watched in horror as his claws unwittingly began extending their groove downward, screeching like nails on a chalkboard in the process. Even _his _feline ears were offended by the noise.

"Oh no you _don't_!" he cried as he threw everything he had into staying put. He reared back and drove his toes into the side of the building with a massive dolphin kick, jamming them deep into the stone in an attempt to increase his resistance. It slowed him a bit, but the pull was incessant. Even gravity was working against him, though, and it was just a matter of time before he was popped off of the wall like a bad piece of commercial artwork.

"Come on, Ladybug," he mewled through clenched teeth. "Work your magic..."

* * *

_**Ladybug**_

Cruising through the neighborhoods of Paris, Ladybug was only partially paying any heed to the beautiful evening. Her mind was thoroughly and totally distracted by the revelations of the day and refused to give up any space to consider anything else. Slowly she was coming to terms with the fact that Adrien had actually been out there, with her, nearly every evening keeping the City of Lights safe. How she had never seen that for what it was she would never fully understand; what she _did _comprehend was that Chat Noir nee Adrien was totally into her, in or out of the Ladybug attire.

And she had to admit, she felt the same about her partner. In fact, the more she thought about it, she'd been feeling that way for some time now, but just needed a bit of a nudge to make her realize it. Almost loosing Chat had been the final clarion call that there really was a connection between them. She was finding it hard to believe how long she had pushed Chat away, and just how resilient his faith in her had been.

_Still not gonna tell him that_, she thought with a smile as she descended one final time to the rooftop the duo often used as their staging point. Although she knew Chat had by necessity left the Agreste mansion after her, she was still surprised he'd not managed to beat her to the rendezvous as was normally his custom. Even allowing for his bruised ribs, he'd still have tried to make it more of a race than he should have. After a minute of waiting, she started pacing the space, an uneasiness descending on her.

_This isn't right_.

Ladybug pulled out her yo-yo and started to flip it into phone mode, thought better of it, and switched it to GPS mode. She smiled when the green paw lit up on the map just a few blocks away from her, then frowned when she realized it wasn't moving toward her and was, in fact, moving rather erratically around the neighborhood he appeared to be in.

The phone buzzed and she tried to pick it up; for a brief second, she saw Chat on the tiny screen before the signal was lost. She tried to call him back but it failed to connect, proving yet again that even their superhero service was hostage to the lousy Paris 4G network.

Ladybug spun around and launched toward Chat's last location and crossed the distance fairly quickly, landing on a rooftop opposite where he was supposed to be. To her shock, he was exactly where it indicated, although, to be fair, he was hanging on to the corner of the building with something large trying to drag him down to the street –

_Wait, was that a... giant… frog? _

"I leave you alone for ten minutes. Ten minutes!" she called out to her partner.

"It's an argument for spending every waking minute with me, milady," he replied, though the strain of keeping himself anchored against what she thought was an oversized amphibian tongue kept tugging at his lower body. "Clearly I can't be trusted to my own devices and need – oof! – constant supervision."

An eye on the amphibious thing rotated and spied her. Ladybug suspected that was not good, and decided to shift to a new, higher location. "This lizard give itself a name?" she asked as she leapt across the street and landed on the roof overlooking Chat.

"I didn't have time to ask," Chat grunted. "Been a little busy trying not to be the main course."

Now that she was closer, Ladybug could see that Chat was covered in slime; his wild mane was crazier than normal, with slime-covered patches sticking up at right angles to everything. If he weren't about to become a cat treat, it would've made for a funny social media post, given how careful Chat was about his image. "Looks like you didn't go down well the first time," she quickly concluded.

"Too stringy," he managed to get out as he slid another few inches toward the expectant frog. "Look," he said tightly, "I don't want to rush you or anything, but I'm not sure - arrrgh! - how much longer I can keep my grip here."

She nodded and immediately threw her yo-yo into the sky. "Lucky Charm!"

Out of the burst of light, a massive fire extinguisher dropped to her feet with a metallic clank.

Chat looked up but the edge of the roof prevented him from seeing anything. "That sounded interesting..."

Ladybug kneeled and read the label: "It's an old-fashioned carbon dioxide fire extinguisher," she said. "What do I do with that?"

"CO2?" Chat repeated. "It's dry ice! Use it to -"

"-cool it down!" Ladybug finished, as she scooped up the device and with her free hand, used her yo-yo to slide down to the street a few yards away from the frog. In one smooth motion, she tipped the extinguisher on its edge, with the cone facing the critter, and triggered the device. A massive plume of foam shot out of the device, and she slowly rotated from side to side to evenly coat the frog from head to toe.

The cooling effect of the foam was immediate – it thrashed a bit and started to back away from Ladybug, pausing only long enough to snap it's tongue back so it could move more freely. But the movements began to become more lethargic until it had chilled enough that its self-preservation hibernation mode kicked in.

Ladybug clicked off the extinguisher and set it aside as Chat Noir dropped in beside her. He halfheartedly licked at a paw, grimacing at the taste. "I could really use a shower," he said.

She looked him over and nodded. "Yes." She turned to the quiescent amphibian. "Any thoughts as to where the akuma is hiding?" she asked. "Nothing stands out to me."

Chat carefully started circling the lizard, wary of getting too close. "Maybe this?" he asked, pointing a webbed toe.

Ladybug looked over his shoulder at what appeared to be a bracelet; the toe was big enough that it looked more like a ring, but it was about normal for a human wrist. She stepped over and with Chat's help, managed to pull it off and then dash it to the ground. It cracked in two and released the telltale akuma, which Ladybug quickly scooped up with her yo-yo.

One Miraculous Ladybug later, they were consoling a herpetology post-doctoral fellow who'd been denied tenure at the University. Hawkmoth had certainly plugged into the despair the man had felt at seeing his life's work crushed by peer review.

"Remind me never to go into Academia," Chat whispered after they were sure there were no lasting effects on the young scientist and had sent him safely home. "It sounds harsher than anything Hawkmoth has ever thrown at us."

"No kidding," Ladybug said as she spun her yo-yo in a lazy circle. Her earrings had started to chirp at her. "Looks like I need to make a side trip before we continue on to Master Fu," she said. "And you still need a shower."

Chat ran a glove through his matted hair, coming away with a glob of ick. "Cats hate baths, you know," he complained.

"More than cold cream?" she teased.

"I'm never going to live that down, am I?"

"Not as long as I live." She laughed, then sobered slightly. "Look, this little sideshow has given me an idea that might catch two birds with one kitty. Are you game?"

"For you, bugaboo, anything."

"Good," she winked, "'cause you're not gonna like it."

* * *

**AN: I'm going out of town for the weekend, so the final five sections won't be added for a few days. If you're patient, there might just be a bonus epilogue, too...**

**As I am also kind of hooked on this universe, I'll have a new adventure starting on March 1; set after this story closes, I'm hoping to delve a bit deeper into these two characters and the people around them. Stay tuned. **


	14. Sleight of Hand

_**Adrien**_

Ladybug had been correct: he was not at all happy with the plan she had concocted but had to admit it might give them a shot at revealing the identity of whoever had been targeting them. They'd put their plan to visit Master Fu on hold, and Chat Noir had returned to the Agreste mansion and transformed back into Adrien. After a long, hot shower to try and remove every vestige of slime, he'd padded into his closet to find the one outfit he thought he would never wear while being Adrien, and then covered it with a bulky set of sweats and his now trusty beanie.

Plagg floated next to him as he stuffed a few other items into a backpack, including one that the kwami had surreptitiously retrieved from his father's pattern vault. "This is a dumb idea," he offered, unsolicited, as he downed yet another piece of Camembert.

"I trust Ladybug," Adrien said. "And there is a chance this might work."

"Love makes people blind," his kwami said despondently. Adrien smiled and helped Plagg into his backpack, which he zipped shut.

Not surprisingly, he found Nathalie working late in his father's den after a tentative knock at the door. "Adrien," she said unemotionally. "You're looking better."

"The power of a day of rest," he smiled winningly as he leaned against the doorframe casually, hands deep in the hoodie's pocket. "Look, can I make a quick run over to Marinette's house? She loaned me her notes from science class but inadvertently also left behind her research for the paper she's writing." He inclined his head toward the backpack he had slung over a shoulder. "I've got her binder right here, it won't take long to return it."

"I can have –"

"I know," he said, cutting her off. "But she was so kind in even coming over today, I feel like it would only be right for me to personally deliver it." He paused dramatically and tried to go for downcast. "I have so few friends…"

She looked at him, and a for a moment, he thought perhaps she was seeing through his lie. He redoubled the Adrien charm, trying to look both naïve and hopeful at the same time. She considered him a little longer, and then buzzed his bodyguard. "Adrien needs to make a quick trip. Be at the front gate in five," she ordered perfunctorily.

Nathalie turned back to Adrien. "It's nearly nine, and it's a school night," she reminded him. "Don't stay too long."

"Thanks, Nathalie!" he said enthusiastically as he bounded from the den and out the front door to await his ride.

The Gorilla (he couldn't _not _think of him as that now) pulled the luxury sedan around and Adrien popped into the backseat. Per usual there was no conversation between them, and just a few minutes later, the car pulled up in front of the Dupain-Cheng bakery. Adrien paused before opening the door. "This could take a bit," he said, trusting that Nathalie had not given Gorilla any further info than what he'd heard her dictate. "I can text you when I'm ready."

Gorilla looked unconvinced, so he cranked the Adrien smile to ten. "I'll be done in time to be home before it's too late."

A curt nod was all he got in response, and he exited the sedan before the Gorilla could change his mind. As the car drove away, Adrien went to the side of the bakery where the entrance to the residential suite on the second floor was, entered, and made his way to their front door. Marinette met him as he was about to knock, and he smiled, knowing she had probably been watching for his arrival.

"Adrien!" she said with believable surprise. "What are you doing here?"

He smiled and leaned close so only she could hear him. "You need to stutter a bit more, milady."

She blushed as he stood back. "You left your research notes earlier, and I thought you might need them." He unzipped his backpack and angled it so she could take a peek at its contents.

An eyebrow lifted and a smile quirked as she glanced from his hands to what was inside the backpack. "I wondered where those – uh, rather, that – had gotten to," she said, loud enough for the obvious ears of her parents in the next room. "Come on in and we'll get this sorted."

Adrien followed her into the now familiar space, and briefly greeted her parents who had apparently paused their movie in order to see who Marinette's visitor was. Both were a little shocked to see it was Adrien and betrayed some amusement as Marinette fairly rushed her visitor up to her room on the next level.

Once safely in her room, and only after she had made sure her door was firmly closed, did she turn back to her guest with a wide smile. "I can't believe you kept it," she laughed.

"It wasn't by choice," he said defensively. "After what Father put into the effort, he wasn't about to let it get thrown out or worse, allow it to be copied by a competitor." He pulled off his beanie, exposing his still damp locks and two feline ears, one of which caught itself in the hat as he removed it.

"Ouch!" he winced as the ear pulled on his hair. "I can't begin to tell you how uncomfortable these ears are. And how difficult to put on," he complained as he readjusted the offending ear, then paused for effect. "Compared to the _real _ones…"

Marinette smiled even wider. "How is it possible I never noticed the resemblance that day?" she asked.

Adrien smiled as he shrugged off the hoodie to expose more of the Chat Noir outfit his father had been commissioned to create for the music video Adrien was supposed to have been in (playing the role, unfortunately, of Chat Noir). Marinette tried not to laugh as he snagged a faux claw in one arm and struggled a bit to disentangle himself.

"Well, _my_ hair is a bit less unruly than Chat's, not to mention I was intentionally trying to be as lame as possible on that stage. But I think both of us were so terrified about revealing our identities to the world that we didn't see who was actually standing in front of us."

He kicked off the sweatpants and added, "This is one tough outfit to get into. Father only designed it with a single zipper! I've grown slightly, too, so it's a little tight in few spots. And I keep stepping on this stupid tail."

"You shouldn't be blaming him," Marinette said, trying desperately not to laugh at his expression. "After all, he's not the one who designed the outfit in the first place."

Adrien rolled his expressive eyes, dug back into his backpack and pulled out the Chat Noir mask that he'd carefully placed in such a way that she would see it when he'd opened his backpack to her at the door, and then reached back in to get the Ladybug outfit Marinette had also requested. "This one took a bit more effort to locate, but like I said, Father never throws anything out."

She took the proffered outfit. "Excellent," she said. Then she looked at Adrien, who was trying to fit the mask into place on his face with obvious difficulty. "What's wrong?"

"I've never had to put this on before," he said. "How do I make it stick?"

Marinette put a thoughtful finger to her chin. "And your eyes aren't right, either. That might not be a problem – we just need to be close enough." But she did turn to her boudoir and picked up a tube that she handed to him. "You'll need this around and over the eyes, though."

He tipped the tube into the light and grimaced. "Eye black?" He turned back to her. "You just want to see me in cold cream again, milady. Admit it."

"A woman has to have her secrets."

Adrien smiled. "There had better not be any photos afterward," he winked as he uncorked the tube and started to apply the eye black with the strokes of a true professional. "This doesn't solve how to keep the mask on," he said.

"I've got some other tricks up my sleeve for that." Marinette was digging through her sewing desk as she spoke. "I think a little bit of this will work," she announced, holding up a tiny vial of Westmore Effects Silicon Adhesive. "I used this for the costumes I made for Ayla's twin brothers."

Adrien turned from the mirror, one eye blacked but both widening when he recognized the label. "_Westmore_? You know about Westmore Effects?"

"They're on the internet," Marinette said defensively, "and it had five stars." She saw the stunned expression on his face. "Why?"

He turned back to the mirror and started on the second eye. "They are only the most well-known Hollywood makeup house in, well, the universe," he said. "We use tons of their products when I'm modelling. There's nothing better." He kept at his eye. "You know one of the Westmore brothers did the makeup for Bettie Davis?"

"Who?" Marinette asked as she uncorked the bottle and started to spread a thin layer around the inside of the Chat Noir mask.

Adrien looked askance at her. "Not into old movies, are you? It's about all I could get on the internet." He smiled as he put the finishing touches on his face and then turned toward her fully. "I look forward to educating you."

"I'm sure you do," she said. "Now sit still," she commanded as she deftly outlined where the edges of the mask would hit on his face and quickly dabbed the adhesive on his skin. Then she carefully set the mask on him, gently pressing it to complete the seal. "There!"

Adrien turned back to the mirror and stared into a pretty decent likeness of his alter ego. The eye black helped a little bit to distract from his normal looking sclera, but it wouldn't pass muster up close.

_Just one more adjustment, I think…_

He quickly ran his gloved hands through his hair, tousling up his blonde mane in a close approximation of Chat style, though it wasn't nearly as long as what Chat actually wore. Again, he could be mistaken as Chat from a distance but up close wouldn't fool anyone for more than a few seconds.

"This will work," he said, "but if too many people see me like this, they may start making their own connections."

"Agreed," Marinette said.

Adrien decamped from his spot at the mirror. "Your turn!"

* * *

_**Marinette**_

"Not quite yet, kitty," she said. "First, you have to help me lug these to the roof."

She pointed to the corner of her room, where two sets of fire extinguishers not unlike the one Ladybug had conjured up earlier were sitting. Smaller, of course, but still looking pretty effective. "Dad had these in the kitchen and I've temporarily borrowed them for tonight. But they are heavier than they look."

Adrien's masked eyes widened. "I have some serious concerns about your dad's cooking now…"

Marinette smacked him. "Help? Please?"

She turned to pick up one only to hear Adrien mumble something. Turning back, she was momentarily blinded by his transformation flash; when she was able to see again, Chat already had two of the extinguishers, one on each shoulder, and was halfway up the latter to the skylight.

"Adrien!" she said.

"That's 'Chat' to you, milady," a green eye winked. "Besides, that tail was starting to really bug me," he added, emphasizing his point by shaking his tail at her. "I'll be back for the others."

She watched helplessly as he disappeared through the aperture, then somersaulted back through and down to the floor again with a loud _thump_.

"They'll hear that!" Marinette hissed. "_Change back, now!_"

Chat started to argue with her but saw her expression – and a feline ear cocked suddenly toward her bedroom door. "No time!" he said quietly.

Hastily he grabbed the remaining extinguishers and leapt back to the top of her bed; a second leap and he was clear of the space just as there was a knock at her door.

"Marinette? Everything okay?"

She leaned down and flipped the door open. "Yes," she said to the worried face of her father. "I knocked over my pattern dummy, but we're good now."

Her father looked skeptical, and then realized he didn't see Adrien anywhere. "Where is your guest?"

"Ohhh," she said. "You didn't see him leave?" she said innocently. "He had to have gone right past you."

"No," was the puzzled reply. "I didn't realize we were so focused on the movie."

"I'm sure he waved," she assured her father.

"Huh," he said, unconvinced. "Well, night then, sweetheart."

"Good night," she replied, kissing his bearded face before he closed the door.

"I think you made it worse," Chat said, his face upside down in the skylight, "since my bodyguard is supposed to pick me up here when I'm done. That's going to look weird when he pulls up long after 'Adrien' left."

"You can shimmy down the wall, Chat. Not seeing a problem here," she said crossly, "other than you drawing a bit too much attention."

He dropped back to her bed and shrugged. "You should know by now that cats demand a lot of attention. Constant, even."

Marinette pushed her way up onto the bed, poked him, and pointed to skylight. "Change back. Then Up. _Now_."

Chagrined, but only slightly, she heard Chat replying to her back as she went up to the roof: "Yes, milady. Plagg, claws in."

She was pacing the rooftop when Adrien-as-Chat-Noir pulled himself through the skylight and joined her, not without having to first disentangle his faux tail from where it had gotten caught in the frame. He appeared to be on the cusp of making a comment about it but thought better of it when he caught her face.

"So…" he said, carefully, "we're a number of hours earlier than when I visited with you last night. Not that I would ever doubt you, milady, but do you think this will work?"

"I do," she said. "Especially since this is in the range of times that you have visited me in the past as Chat. If my guess is right, this will work." She turned to him. "Now, be a good kitty and see if you can't sit up there on that railing like you normally do."

Adrien turned and looped a leg over the wrought iron, finding it somewhat more difficult without his Chat Noir reflexes. But at length, he managed a pretty good version of his carefully balanced stance. "Lucky for you, I've been working out," he said, though his teeth were gritted with the effort to keep from falling backwards.

Marinette leaned against railing next to him as she had the night before, trying to ignore the building tremor she could feel from Adrien's stressed muscles. "You really do make that look easy as Chat," she observed.

"It… is… easy…" he forced out. "When you're… a… cat…"

"Hang in there, kitty," she said.


	15. Revealed

_**Adrien**_

The effort it was taking to try not to look like he was taking any effort at keeping himself on the railing was enormous. The stance was second nature for him when he was Chat Noir, as was deftly holding his balance on minimal points of gravity. Adrien was not a weakling by any stretch, but he'd not be able to keep the position much longer.

His human hearing was not as acute as Chat's, but he _thought_ he heard the telltale whistle they were waiting for. Adrien flicked his eyes toward Marinette, and she was already tracking it.

"Here it comes," she said. "Aligned as expected. Ready?"

He nodded – it was about all he could do. This was the trickiest part of the exercise as they were relying on an unproved assumption. One that was about to be tested.

There was no point to trying to count it down, since he wasn't truly sure how far out it might be. Logically it had to be closer for him, as Adrien, to hear it; that was proven correct when a telltale sting bloomed in his neck.

"Ow!" he said, then windmilled his arms as he tumbled forward off the railing. Marinette had thoughtfully slid the cushion from the chase to that spot, so he didn't hit as hard as he might have. She was immediately at his side, yanking the dart from his skin.

Per the plan, Marinette started looking him over. "How do you feel?" she asked quietly while she checked his neck.

He cracked an eye open. "Like I fell onto your roof. With no padding."

She pressed a finger to his neck. "Pulse is normal," she said.

"I could have told you that."

"You're supposed to act as though it's done you in again. Now close your eyes while I 'go' for help."

"As you wish, milady."

He heard her frantically dash across the roof to the skylight, effectively leaving him alone. Keeping his eyes closed, he found himself wishing his feline ears were real as he strained to hear if anything was approaching. With his eyes closed, and with the eyeblack, it would be harder for someone to realize it wasn't Chat Noir down for the count.

Seconds stretched to a minute, then two. He was about to get up and retrieve Marinette when he heard something scrabble over the edge of the balcony and pause, then carefully start in his direction. The hair on the back of his neck rose in unison, and he struggled to keep his breathing in the range that would appear to be "normal" for someone who was unconscious.

A cold but tentative touch to his shoulder, then a more robust shake in an attempt to rouse him. Adrien continued to play possum, breathing as regularly as possible, fiercely forcing his eyes to remain motionless. If he didn't know better, it felt like a skeleton had ahold of him, and he narrowly suppressed a shudder at the thought.

Slowly, he felt himself rolled to his back; then, just as gently, that cold touch encircled the wrist of his ring hand and flexed it upward.

_Interesting_, he thought. Still, he waited.

Almost as if it was afraid it would awaken him, whatever it was carefully grasped the Miraculous ring and slowly started to slide it off. The closer it got to end of his faux claw-tipped finger, the harder it became for him to keep his breathing regular.

With a tiny _klink! _the ring slid over his claw and landed in something, presumably the other (bony?) hand. His arm was gently lowered as Adrien continued to try and breath normally. He felt, more than heard, whatever it was stand up and start to move away from him.

_Any time now, LB..._

On cue, he heard Ladybug call out from across the balcony: "Hey, put that down!"

The _zing!_ of a particular yo-yo rang out as it sailed into the hand of whatever was holding the ring. It clanged against bone as it hit home, along with an unearthly howl that would have flattened his real feline ears back. Whatever it was started toward Ladybug.

Adrien quickly rolled off the cushion and toward the fire extinguisher they'd staged closest to him. Without looking back, he clicked it on full and then scuttled sideways to the second one that sat diagonally across from the first. Both cones had been propped to the sky, creating a gentle mist that quickly began obscuring the air. He heard Ladybug trigger the other two from their positions on the opposite side of where he went down, intensifying the shower with billowing clouds of the cold spray.

The howl intensified as it thrashed through the spray, unable to see them through the thick mist. Adrien pressed himself into a nook in the wall and kept as motionless as possible, allowing the mist to obscure his departure.

"Ring around the poesy," he heard Ladybug sing, her voice bouncing across the space as she used the billowing mist to her advantage. "Come out, come out, wherever you are…" she called again, this time from another direction.

Each time the creature shuffled toward the voice only to change direction when she did. With one final howl, he heard it pitch itself over the edge of the balcony and soon the only noise on the roof was the last gasps from the dissipated extinguishers.

The cloud, however, remained thick, and Adrien used it as cover to circle around to Ladybug. "Nice move, milady," he said as he stood at her side, only then noticing it was actually Marinette in the Ladybug costume he'd brought. He nodded. "Precautionary?"

"Yes," she said, pausing. "And before you ask, yes, it was tough to get into." She looked him over one more time, confirming he was none the worse for wear. "I'd say we proved our thesis, wouldn't you?"

"That the darts only work if we're transformed? I do." He turned toward the cloud, which had started to dissipate as the extinguishers fell silent. "Uh, if you're not Ladybug, what did you hit that thing with?"

"A yo-yo," she said, twirling a dime-store version around her hand; it was cracked in several places where it had impacted. "I'm pretty good with one, you know."

Adrien rolled his eyes and turned back toward the direction their uninvited guest had gone. "What was that, exactly?" he asked as the cloud finally faded.

"Exactly what I expected," Marinette replied happily.

* * *

_**Marinette**_

"And that is…" Adrien prompted her, his head cocked expectantly. It was a very Chat-like expression, another in a long line of little hints at who he really had been all this time. She smiled at the thought.

"It fits the description of the Miraculous Walker Master Fu told us about," she said. "And if our guess is right, it should be headed back to whoever created it in order to receive some new orders."

Adrien smiled, gamely. "Ah, I see it's time for the second part of our ingenious plan." He paused again, raising a masked eyebrow quizzically. "So _now _I can transform?"

Marinette laughed. "Go for it, kitty."

He unzipped one of the side pockets of the faux Chat costume and pulled out his Miraculous ring, sliding back onto the proper finger. "Fortunately for us, Father is a stickler for accuracy, though it does trouble me a bit that he had the right size and shape."

"You forget he has the original Miraculous grimoire to refer to," Marinette reminded him. "I've seen the images, they are pretty darn accurate."

"So he does," Adrien said, and an emotion she couldn't identify flashed quickly across his face. "Plagg – claws out!"

One green flash later, Chat Noir was again standing next to her. He pulled his baton off the small of his back, snapped it open and displayed the tracker to Marinette. A green paw print was flashing on the map, moving away from them fairly quickly. "Good signal," he said. "You should be able to see it on your yo-yo tracker as well."

"I'm impressed that you managed to tag it with a GPS tracker."

"It's called an 'internet of things device' milady," he said. "And you get twenty from Amazon for less than the cost of a latte."

It was her turn to roll her eyes.

Chat's eyes flicked back to the display. "No surprise, it's heading right for that building we already scoped out."

"More confirmation we're on the right track," she said.

"Time to change?"

"Time to change," she replied. "Tikki – spots on!"

* * *

_**Chat Noir**_

Chat held his hand to shield his eyes from the red flash, but snuck a glance and then watched in fascination as Marinette became Ladybug. It was the first time he'd seen it all the way through, and he found himself suddenly a bit self-conscious about his own transformation sequence. He'd assumed for some reason that they would be very similar only to have direct visual evidence to the contrary.

_She has some moves…_

* * *

_**Ladybug**_

"All right, let's get after this." She turned and saw Chat staring at her. "What?"

"Your transformation… it's… it's just stunning," he said, slack jawed.

She quirked her mouth. "Uh, okay…" she started. "Not that anyone other than Tikki has ever observed it before."

"Thanks for letting me see it," he said, as they turned and together bounded off the roof. As they dashed across buildings, he continued: "I do need to get back somewhat soon or Nathalie is going to send out the Calvary. I won't ask the obvious since I know you have a plan –"

"Thank you," she said.

"—but can we wrap this up in less than an hour?"

"It depends on what we find when we get there," she said as she jumped and swung over the next building. "But we have to also assume that there's a better than average chance they are expecting us."

"They?" Chat said as he helicoptered close to her. "I was hoping for even odds."

"Expect the worst, hope for the best."

"You keep saying that," he said as he floated along next to her. "One of these times, we'll get the 'best.'"

Ladybug chuckled as they landed side-by-side and paused on the final rooftop before their destination. The modern building loomed large in the night. She turned to her partner: "Ready?"

Chat winked at her. "Always, bugaboo."

They backed up and got a running start, leaping into the night to face the unknown together.


	16. Known Unknowns

_**Chat Noir**_

He hit the side of the building claws out, and launched himself upward in an easy movement. Unlike other buildings he'd had to scale, Chat had no qualms about the grooves he was leaving behind in the extremely plain exterior of what he was now considering a blight on the Paris skyline. In fact, maybe his scratches would imbue some much-needed character. Ladybug was close beside him, though she was taking the easy way out by raising herself up on the yo-yo.

"Cheater!" he yelled as he leapt again and then one final time to reach the edge of the roofline. He hooked an arm over the safety railing and sprung over the top, landing just off to the side of the helicopter pad they'd seen the first time in his feline crouch.

Ladybug arced over herself and dropped into her ready-for-anything stance a few yards from him. "See anything, Chat?"

He'd already been scanning the area with his night vision and frowned. "Camera on each stairwell," he muttered. "I missed that the first time we were here." He turned toward his partner. "They know we're here. Ideas?"

"Can you tell where the tracker wound up?"

"Good idea." Chat pulled out the baton and clicked into tracking mode. "It's in the building, maybe forty feet below our present position." He looked up. "Two or three floors down, I'd guess. Give me a moment, I might be able to access the floorplan."

As he fiddled with his baton, Ladybug came up behind him. "You can do that?" she asked.

"Yes," he said, "as long as they are on file with City Hall." He looked up. "Everything is on the internet, milady."

"I've never tried on the yo-yo," she admitted.

"No need to," he laughed. "I'm usually with you anyway. Ah! Here it is." He scrolled the image on the tiny screen and used an edge of his claw to expand the cutaway of the building. "Well, if that doesn't scream 'secret villain lair,' I don't know what does."

Ladybug whistled. "That is a massive empty space in the middle of a high rise," she concurred. "Suspicious indeed."

Chat flicked the baton closed but kept it in hand. "The helicopter pad lowers directly into the space," he offered. "The old me would recommend Cataclysm, but the new me is betting you want to hold that in reserve."

"You're learning, kitty," she said approvingly. "Same with the Lucky Charm, I think. Let's go old school. There are, after all, two stairwells."

"I hesitate to point out just how convenient that is, milady. Especially given how much distance separates them."

"Exactly." She winked.

_Okay_, he thought. _Not sure I know what she's going with, but we'll roll with it._

"I'll take the one across the way," she said. "You go through that one."

"On it," he said, and immediately started to trot toward the doorway. Ladybug retreated to the opposite end of the roof and paused, waiting for him.

He placed a hand on the door, fully aware the cameras had tracked them all the way, and nodded. In unison, they pulled their respective handles and then leapt away from the yawning doorway, narrowly avoiding the cavalcade of Miraculous Walkers flowing out and onto the roof.

Chat somersaulted backward toward the center of the space, landing back to back with Ladybug, and started to spin his baton in preparation for batting away the coming fusillade of darts. "Not unexpected," he said. "So much for even odds."

"Yes," she agreed.

Now that he could see them in full, the Walkers were indeed a parody on a bad Halloween costume: they were skeleton-like, although everything below the knee was missing, which didn't appear to be a problem as they were floating quite easily a few feet above the ground. A tawny hooded robe, looking very much like sack cloth from the dark ages, covered the balance of the figure. There may or may not have been a smiling skull staring back at them from the depths of the hood, but the lighting was poor enough even for Chat's vision to make the determination.

Or, frankly, he just didn't want to see what was under there.

It was not lost on him that they had yet to shoot their payload at either of them. They had, however, encircled the pair, and appeared to be shrinking the circumference as they watched.

"Why haven't they attacked?" he asked over his shoulder, as he felt them take a step backward.

"They're pushing us toward the helipad," Ladybug said. "It's a given we need to avoid whatever is under that."

"Get your yo-yo ready to snag us," he said. "I have an idea."

"Ready!"

Slowly, the Walkers closed in on them, pushing them closer to the pad. Chat kept spinning the baton, not quite trusting they wouldn't attempt to take them on before the pad did whatever it was going to do. His boot hit the edge of the helipad, and he glanced down long enough to see one of the marker lights flashing in joyful warning.

_No kidding._

Two more steps and they were both on the pad completely, and the Walkers ceased their movement.

"Oh boy." Chat tensed into a crouch. He slid his thumb over a particular button on the baton. "Ladybug –"

Faster than should have been possible, the landing pad dropped open beneath them and they were falling into the space below. Chat's fast feline reflexes let him activate the baton and the toss it upward in a single fluid movement; his eyes watched it rise above the aperture and then snap out to span the entire opening. Ladybug's yo-yo spun upward immediately after it and wrapped itself around the center of the baton a number of times; he felt her grab him around the waist and arrest their fall. The baton bounced slightly at their weight but held as he knew it would.

Chat looked down. Hundreds of the Walkers were milling around on the concrete decking below them; hundreds more ringed the walkways and catwalks around them. Directly below them was a giant circular pool-like object, though instead of water, it was housing sort of blue-grey mist that looked decidedly dangerous. They were hanging less than twenty feet above it, and Chat was sure he could feel some sort of shock getting through the toes of his boots.

_Definitely not water, then._

"Sorry to crash your pool party, fellas," he said. "But you know how cats don't like to get wet."

His voice echoed in the space. Chat turned to Ladybug as he reached above them to add some additional strength to their position. "Maybe we should have called in Team Miraculous?" he whispered.

"Absolutely not," she whispered back. "I won't endanger any more holders than the two of us."

"Good point." He scanned the room again, tightening his grip a little bit as he did so. "I'm starting to feel a bit like an exhibit, the way they are staring at us." He paused. "What are they waiting for? They could pretty easily take us out right now..."

"I don't think that's the plan," Ladybug replied, casting her eyes downward.

He didn't need to follow her glance. "That's a pleasant thought. A portal, you think?"

"Possibly. Or a vat of a super-duper dose of whatever was in that dart." She looked back at him. "It might be best to think that it would be bad for us either way."

"Agreed," Chat said.

The pair lurched downward slightly, causing them to both look upward.

Chat's eyes grew wide. "Nice place you have here," he said with bravado that didn't match what he was truly feeling.

For there, balancing on the baton as easily as Chat himself could do, stood a tall cloaked figure with a long, pallid face lined with wrinkles, wreathed in a head of thick but wild white hair. The sunken eyes spoke to the same longevity, but had a fierce fire in them that was currently trained on Chat and his partner. The voice, when it finally spoke, was soft but infused with power that made the room feel electric.

"I have waited centuries for this moment," he (Chat _thought _it was a "he", but the form was nearly androgynous) said. "To finally be able to eradicate the scourge of the Miraculous once and for all." It smiled a hideous smile. "You may have thought your fake Miraculous clever, but in the end, I knew you would deliver yourselves directly to me. It was just a matter of time; I nearly had you earlier."

"Who are you, exactly?" Chat asked, as they twisted slightly on the yo-yo. "Or maybe I should ask: what are you, exactly?"

"Who am _I_?" it retorted. "Don't you _know_?" It laughed, a cruel and cold emotion that felt nearly physical as it washed over Chat. "I am _le dernier marcheur miraculeux – _the Last Walker, sole survivor of my order and everything you are _not_."

"That's a pretty broad definition," Chat said cheekily. "For example, since I'm not a pizza, would that make you one? And along the same lines, I'm also not Ladybug – but she's not me, either. That would mean you might be one or both of us, depending on your perspective, right?" He grinned wider. "So, in a sense, you _could _be everything we are, too."

"I am _nothing _like you!" it hissed, shaking with anger.

"Chat!" Ladybug hissed. "What are you doing?"

"Testing my own theory," he said quietly. "And buying time for you to get us out of this." He looked back up at the figure above them. "And another thing – how are you able to balance on skinny legs like those?"

"_Silence!_" it thundered, shaking the baton (and them) in the process.

"What?" Chat said, cocking his feline ears toward the sky. He adjusted his lower hand that was next to Ladybug's arm, poking her gently with a claw in a particular direction. She looked at him and he winked. "Sorry, I didn't catch that. My hearing's not as good as before you shot-"

That appeared to be a bridge to far, as the Last Walker leaned over and started to unwind the yo-yo, displaying a strength that belied the grizzled visage. They felt themselves slowly starting to slide toward the mass of Walkers milling around below them and the vat of mysterious magic.

"Keep right on talking," it said. "It'll do you no good. My compatriots below are ready to receive you, and this time they'll not spare themselves the trouble of waiting for you to be incapacitated before they rip those cursed jewels from you."

"They do look ready," Chat agreed, turning back to Ladybug. "But I think we are, too."

* * *

_**Ladybug**_

It hadn't been much of a prompt, but she and Chat were rarely not on the same wavelength in tough situations. His gentle nudge and pointed her toward a relatively empty catwalk near one corner of the space. That was the obvious move, though, visual safety that belied the fact the Last Walker had thus far correctly guessed each of their moves.

_And Chat would recognize that as well_, she thought.

As Chat continued to antagonize their host, they twisted around a bit more, and Chat's real target came into view for her. Her eyes popped a bit wider at the audacity of her partner, and his blind faith that she would come through.

She sighed. What girl wouldn't fall for that act?

_Clearly it didn't work on me earlier_, she thought as they slid further toward the swirling mists below them.

"You know, I'm pretty sure fried cat is outlawed in France," Chat said to the Last Walker as he surreptitiously shifted his position and slid them upward a fraction.

"France is the least of my worries," it replied as it continued unwinding the yo-yo.

It had been so slow that even Ladybug hadn't noticed that Chat had been flicking his tail – well, actually, she _had _noticed but thought it was just part of his act with the Last Walker. But what she'd not realized initially was that it had been done in such a way that it had created a bit of a pendulum motion, aided by him alternately leaning into her, and then subtly pulling away in an effort to increase their arc. By the time the yo-yo had started to come undone, they were moving at a stately but significant clip.

Now all she needed to do was time the jump, grab the yo-yo, and call for her Lucky Charm. No biggie.

Chat leaned his head down and whispered into her ear. "Maybe five seconds, if I've judged it right."

Ladybug judged their current position and nodded. "I can do it."

Chat gave her the smile that reminded her of Adrien. "I know you can, bugaboo." He looked up again. "Are you sure you wouldn't prefer take out somewhere? There is a great Indian place-"

They were just swinging up in the top of their arc when the Last Walker released the yo-yo completely. She felt Chat tighten his grip around her waist, and she did the same, the yo-yo retracting it as they continued unabated upward and away from the catwalk space they'd originally seen.

Instead, they were headed for an actual helicopter, parked in the corner of the space. Their trajectory took them up and over the Walkers and they landed on the far side of the aircraft, temporarily giving them some cover.

"So far, so good," Chat said as they crouched against the metal. "Our friend is still on my baton. Any chance you can grab it away from him?"

"I can try." She snuck to the corner of the helicopter and threw her yo-yo at the near end of the baton, yanked, and managed to pull in askew. Last Walker lost its balance and tumbled over as the yo-yo returned to Ladybug, baton shortening back to normal as it travelled toward them.

"Fools!" Last Walker cried as it righted itself in midair. "You cannot defeat me!"

"Why do they _always _say that?" Chat asked.

"I think it's in the villain handbook." She handed him the baton. "I believe this is yours."

"Thanks, milady." He winked. "I think it's time for us to work our own magic."

She nodded and threw up her yo-yo, crying: "Lucky Charm!"

After the magical bugs dissipated, a scroll dropped into her hands, tied in the middle with a dark ribbon. There was a wax seal binding the ribbon to the paper, and it looked ancient.

Ladybug turned to Chat. "You get the darndest things," he said, one masked eyebrow raised. His eyes flicked toward Last Walker who, along with its minions, were quickly moving toward them. "Better hurry, milady."

"But what do I do with it?" she asked.

"This is dark magic, remember? My bet is, you've just been given a counter to it."

* * *

**AN: Will our heroes survive? You likely already know the answer to that. **

**One final chapter to go.**


	17. Endgame

_**Chat Noir**_

"Open it," he encouraged Ladybug. "No, wait," he said suddenly, "let's get over here first."

He grabbed her and leapt to the top of the fuselage of the helicopter, then leapt again onto the center of the rotor. "I can protect you better from here," he said. "Now, _read_!"

* * *

_**Ladybug**_

Quickly, Ladybug slit the wax with a gloved finger and unwrapped the ribbon binding the parchment. The paper looked and smelled old, and refused to uncurl easily. It took both hands to keep the paper open.

The script was elegantly written, and clearly hand done. It was simple prose, and as she scanned through the handful of lines, she thought she felt the frisson of power beneath her fingers. "Okay, Chat. Here we go."

Chat stepped in front of her, putting her into relative safety. Last Walker was floating just behind the first wave of Walkers, who were coming up and over the front of the aircraft. Chat beat back the first throng, then the second, before she was able to get her voice to work properly.

"Winds from the east, hear my call..."

* * *

_**Chat Noir**_

His baton continued to clang against bony material, alternating between spinning and parrying. The waves of Walkers seemed to be endless, and he was starting to feel the strain of fending them off. As he beat back what had to be fifth wave, he noted unenthusiastically that Last Walker had started to conjure up more of the creatures out of thin air, sending them toward him.

_Lovely._

* * *

_**Ladybug**_

"Life waters, running from the west..."

She was starting to feel disassociated from herself; it was her voice, but it felt less like she was talking and more like someone else was using her.

"...sands from the desert north; combine in strength and force..."

A feeling started deep within her chest, unlike anything she'd experienced before. It grew, blossoming into a palpable power that she could visualize. She watched, fascinated that she could "see" the power moving through her, toward her hands holding the paper.

* * *

_**Chat Noir**_

Chat was _definitely_ starting to feel it. His shoulders were aching, and he was sure that last karate kick had tweaked a knee. Still he continued on, giving Ladybug the time she needed to complete the spell. Walkers were now starting to claw their way up on the tail section of the helicopter, an attempt to force Chat to bounce between two fronts. He knew it was a diversion meant to move him away from Ladybug and instead stepped closer to her.

* * *

_**Ladybug**_

"Cleanse this space and wash all to dust!"

The final line fell from her lips heavily, and the effort to say them was immense. But the massive bloom of power used that as a cue to move beyond her and into the room. She wasn't entirely sure that she had seen it, but she heard Chat's sharp intake of breath and realized it _had_ been physical.

Above them, a massive green-red cloud was slowly spinning, a commensurate breeze along with it, ramping up as the cloud spun tighter and faster. In waves, the Walkers were blown into particles of dust that vanished into nothingness, leaving behind just the Last Walker itself.

The Last Walker attempted to flee the space, but the breeze had become a gale force, holding it in place. Slowly, it began to dissolve, but not without it giving a parting warning.

"You may have won this round, Miraculous holders. But this is only a temporary victory... my vengeance cannot be denied...!" it cried as the last of it dissolved away.

The cloud faded as well, and the sudden silence in the hangar loomed large.

She slumped into Chat's arms, exhausted. "I think we did it," she said.

"Yes," he said as he hugged her. "We did."

Ladybug straightened up. "I might need your help on this," she said weakly, handing him her yo-yo.

He smiled widely. "Of course, milady," he said as he tossed it into the air for her.

"Miraculous Ladybug!"

* * *

_**Chat Noir**_

The Ladybug Luck put them back on top of the building, with the helipad door firmly shut and none the worse for wear. He wasn't certain what else the spell might have restored to normal, but since he still knew _who _was under the Ladybug mask, he assumed it had only targeted their efforts with the Last Walker.

He was pleasantly surprised to find that he was still holding Ladybug, who had passed out. He couldn't blame her – judging at what had shot out from her, it had to have been nasty. Chat was worried it might have harmed her, and hoped for the best just in case.

_Hope for the best, _he thought warmly. _I guess we always do, don't we?_

Chat wrapped an arm around Ladybug and slowly made his way across the night sky back to Marinette's home. He mused about how much had changed in his world in the space of just a few short days, and wondered what the future now had in store for the two of them. Somehow, though, he felt certain that he was exactly where he needed to be, and with the person that needed him the most.

Gently, he dropped down and through the bedroom window, carefully adjusting his hold on Ladybug. She had started to snore in his arms, and though he was reluctant to wake her, knew that her earrings were on the verge of changing her back into Marinette.

Which, now that he thought about it, was not a bad thing.

He waited for the final chirps, still holding Ladybug against his chest, allowing the transformation to shift her back to Marinette. Even more gently, he carried her up the ladder to her bed and carefully pulled the covers up and over her. She was still wearing the faux Ladybug costume, so he made an effort to try and hide as much of it as he could beneath the bedclothes. He was able to gently peel the mask off, silently thanking Westmore Effects for the ability to do it easily enough that Marinette never woke.

Tikki floated nearby, smiling. "She'll be fine after a good night of rest," she chirped. "I'll keep an eye on her from here. But if you don't mind," she added, with a twinkle in her big round eyes, "I could use one of the macaroons she has hidden in the desk over there."

Chat smiled and dropped silently back to the floor, found the drawer in question and pulled out the cookies, handing Tikki two with a flourish. "In recognition of your excellent work today, my mini lady," he said, bowing.

Tikki smiled wider. "Always the gentleman, Chat Noir," she said.

His eyes crinkled as he retrieved his sweats from where he'd dropped them and pulled them on, then looped his backpack over his shoulders.

Tikki spoke up. "Chat! Don't you need to transform back? What are you doing?"

He smiled. "It's way past midnight, Tikki. Adrien is going to have to sneak back into the mansion unseen at this point, but since he also 'left' here earlier, these have to come with me. Besides," he said as he stepped to the edge of the window, "the night is still young. No reason not to enjoy it."

Tikki shook her head, much like Ladybug often did. "See you later, Chat Noir," she replied cheerfully.

Chat leapt out and extended his baton, heading back to the place that started him on this wild series of events. When he arrived at his favorite rooftop overlooking Notre Dame, he dropped the backpack, shrugged off the sweats and stood up against the railing once more, proudly owning the persona he inhabited. No doubts this time; he knew he was a changed cat.

One that was very much valued by the person he thought the most of.

Two days ago, he'd been in the throes of despair; tonight, his entire life seemed to be spreading out in front of him, one that would continue to include Ladybug – and, more importantly, now Marinette. He thought for a moment about who he had been just a few short hours ago and what he had gone through to get to this new place, and what he had shed in order to realize the goal. Had it been enough?

He hoped it had. But whatever it had been, he felt certain it had been a price he would gladly pay again to get to where he was now.

He smiled as he thought: _That is a nice elegy for a Chat. Not the Chat I am today – but the one that believed Adrien and Chat, and for that matter, Ladybug and Marinette, had to be separate people. _

The black cladded hero scanned the darkened sky, and chanced to see a shooting star, wide green eyes tracing its path over the city. He smiled at the trite but nonetheless welcome sign

_Don't worry. I'll never forget that lesson._

Chat Noir stood there a little longer, enjoying the night lights of Paris, before turning for home.


	18. Epilogue

"It's not entirely clear," Nathalie said. "The radio from the sauna actually masks a lot of the conversation. But I am pretty sure they were both in Adrien's bathroom."

She looked up from her desk, where she had been playing an audio file for Gabriel. "Play the last section again," he said.

Nathalie rewound the file and started it. As she'd indicated, the voices on the recording were almost impossible to hear over the chatter of the all talk radio Adrien was listening to, as well as the subtle hiss of the sauna itself. She tweaked the audio settings once more to fine tune the dialogue.

_"One second. Look - before we get too much further - know something."_

_"Milady?" _

_"- don't say this often - incredibly important part - said earlier, while my true love - elsewhere - room in my heart for -"_

"Stop." Gabriel stepped away from the desk and started to pace the length of his den. "This presents us with some intriguing insight," he mused.

"So, you concur it was Ladybug on the tape?"

"And Chat Noir, I'm sure of it." He looked back at his assistant. "And they were _here_, in the mansion." He continued to pace. "Chat Noir clearly has feelings for Ladybug, but it seems she doesn't reciprocate." Gabriel looked up again. "This might be an opportunity we can work to our advantage, but it will take time to come up with a suitable plan."

"But doesn't that mean Adrien is somehow tied in with them?" She pointed to the file. "He was clearly aware they were going to be meeting in his bathroom. That has to mean he knows who they are."

"Or he knows how to contact them," Gabriel continued the thought. He turned back to the painting of his wife, which he'd come to stand in front of.

"Yes, Nathalie, this might just be the turn of luck I've been waiting for..."

* * *

**AN: That's it for this adventure. Thank you for the continued feedback - and stay tuned. A new story is on the way.**

**Update (03/02/2019): The story continues! Check out _Sweethearts Ball _to see how Hawkmoth tries to make use of his insider information...**


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